Best belated birthday surprise EVER.

Remember The Vespers?

Well, about a month ago, I found out they booked a show in Raleigh on June 14 and a show in Wilmington on June 18 (aka TOMORROW).  I figured the Wilmington show would be a bit more doable, and I knew Mom would take me to it...until she booked her surgery for today.  Once I knew she had surgery today and Matt couldn't afford a night off work, I figured my chances were shot.  By last week or so, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't going to happen and forgotten about it.

Until Mom brought it up tonight.  (She's fine, by the way.  Her surgery went just perfectly, and she feels just about as good as can be expected.)  She kept talking about how badly she wanted to take me to the show tomorrow night, and I ever so gently reminded her that there's no way in the world that she'll drive on painkillers OR that she'll be able to go without painkillers.  Sweet of her, but no.  I'd be heartless if I even considered it.

But the more I kept thinking about it, the more I figured "what the heck" and posted a simple comment as my Facebook status.  "Mallory Jones would pay someone to take her to Wilmington tomorrow night."

The power of Facebook, my friends.

After two of my friends who live out of town said that they so would take me if they were here, a girl I went to high school commented and said, "Hey, I'm home and I'll take you there."  So I get to go!!!!!!  Talk about a last-second divine intervention from God.  I'm SO freakin' thrilled to get to do this, and my friend said that she's got a crapload of college homework she has to do, and getting out of the house with a babysitter watching her son for her will give her an excuse to just sit down and get it all done.  So basically, I'm paying her babysitter, but I am totally okay with that.

I get to see Taylor and Bruno and Callie and Phoebe tomorrow!!!!!

No Parent Left Behind

My mom's principal sent this out in an email.  We both, and Mommom and Chelsea, cried from laughing. Enjoy. My thoughts are in bold.

These are real notes written by parents in the Memphis school district.  Spellings have been left intact...... 
1. My son is under a doctor's care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.  Execute? Well that's a bit of a harsh punishment for being sick!
2. Please exkuce Lisa for being absent she was sick and I had her shot.  Again, if you had her shot, I think there are bigger problems than truancy here.
3. Dear school: please ecsc's john being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and also 33.  What calendar are you using?  And more importantly, in what universe does January have 33 days?
4. Please excuse Gloria from Jim today. She is administrating.  What was Jim gonna do her? Was she supposed to tutor him?  And what does a student have to administrate?
5. Please excuse Roland from p.e. For a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.  Where'd it go?
6. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.  Taken out of his face, huh? As opposed to...his knee?
7.. Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.  I'm a little behind in anatomy. Where is the growing part located?
8. Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.  Make the darn things move, then!
9. Chris will not be in school cus he has an acre in his side.  Chris must be HUGE if he can fit a whole acre in his side!  We're talking mammoth huge here, people.
10. Please excuse ray Friday from school. He has very loose vowels.  His consonants, on the other hand, are very tightly packed.
11. Please excuse Lesli from being absent yesterday. She Had diahre dyrea direathe the shits.  Life lesson numero uno: Go with what you know.
12. Please excuse tommy for being absent yesterday.. He had diarrhea, and his boots leak.  I'd tell the shoe store I want my money back, if I were you.
13. Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust. Yeah...I've got nothin.
14. Please excuse jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.  That's not very nice!
15. I kept Billie home because she had to go Christmas shopping because I don't know what size she wear.  Uh you could just...I don't know...ask her her size before she leaves for school? Or wait till Saturday.  Just a thought.
16. Please excuse Jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the Sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it Monday. We thought it was Sunday.  That's a lot of pressure to put on a newspaper.  It's not its fault you forgot!  And there IS this newfound invention called a calendar. You can buy one pretty much anywhere.  I kindly suggest you look into one.
17. Sally won't be in school a week from Friday. We have to attend her funeral.  Awww, poor Sally.  If you're going to her funeral, I think it's safe to assume she won't be there any of the weeks after that, either.
18. My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the marines. Must've been quite a weekend!
19. Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.  I didn't know fertility issues were a good reason to miss school.  I'll make a note.
20. Please excuse Mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.  Why haven't you called the police yet, then?!
21. Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.  I hope sweet Gloria is doing some rehabilitation of the gang members and isn't actually a part of one.
22. Please excuse Brenda. She has been sick and under the doctor.  And again, call. the. cops.
23. Maryann was absent December 11-16, because she had a fever, sorethroat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever an sore throat , her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.  Unless you, your other daughter, and your son go to Maryann's school, I really don't think the administration needs to know how you feel.  And also, I'd look into some therapy if you're really that unattracted to your husband.  But it's not my business.
Now we know why parents are screaming for better education for our kids.  Indeed.

:)

For once it's not me.

Mom has sinus surgery tomorrow.

It's the exact same surgery that I had done in January of '07 and April of '09, except they're not breaking her nose like they did mine both times.

If I'm being completely honest, all I can think at the moment is "For once, it's not me."  But with 15 surgeries in the past 5 years all on me, I'd say it's a pretty logical reaction.  I'm not worried about Mom.  Our ENT is awesome.

So for at least the next four days, I'll happily be Mom's little servant, all while trying to keep Chelsea from doing anything stupid.  This should be fun.

Typical

That was the word I used when describing the day to Matt. 

Typical.

As in, yes it was my birthday, but it was a very typical day in this house.  The state of our house often depends on what mood Chelsea decides to be in.  Well, today, she was all over the place, vacillating between angry (telling me it was her mission to make my day hell) and annoyingly perky (telling me every. single. thing. her boyfriend said to her and repeating stories I've heard ten times already), so it ended up being just like any other day.

I got woken up at 8:20 by a text from my friend/Holly's roommate Carmen.  I was planning on getting up at 9:00, but I couldn't get back to sleep.  We left for the beach at 10:00 and spent a little more than three hours there.  The afternoon was lazy - Blake napped, I played on the computer, Mom worked and picked up the dogs, and Chelsea cleaned.  I would've helped, but it should be illegal to do chores on your birthday. :)  We had dinner with Mommom, Uncle Kirk, Aunt Donna and Bri at a local restaurant and I had a really awesome steak.  Then I came back and just avoided Chelsea.  Matt stopped by at about 11:40 and we stood talking in the driveway for like 20 minutes.  Haha!  Best part of my day, for sure. 

Awesome surprise for the day?  An iTunes lady who was really really nice to me.  Here's what happened: Well, when my computer died, I thought I lost all of my iTunes library on it.  Well, Dr. Google led me to a site that told me how to import all my songs from my iPod onto my new computer.  However, my iPod doesn't hold TV shows, and I had bought a bunch of TV episodes that were in my library that I had no idea how I was going to get to. I emailed Customer Support and sent them all the order numbers as proof that I really had bought them.  Some help lady restored all the shows to my account and allowed me to download them for free!  She also showed me how to back up my library so this never happens again. (I'm technologically stupid. I had no idea you could do that.)  Plus she gave me an extra credit to my account and I got an extra episode.  It was AWESOME.  And a big relief that $36 wasn't wasted.

I have a migraine, so that's all for now.

19

*sings*
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Make my day even cooler and leave me some birthday love?

Sony VAIO has stolen my heart.

My first two laptops were HP (this is my third).

Every laptop my mom has ever had was an HP.

We were happy, HP and I.  Comfortable.  We knew each other very well.  It was like coming home to an old friend.  So it'd be safe to assume I'd stick with what I know, right?

Wrong.

When your mom tells you to get either an HP or a  Sony VAIO and the one store you go to (and can go to) doesn't have any HP laptops, your choice is kind of set for you.

And let me tell you this: best advice my mama ever gave me!

Okay, maybe that's a tad exaggerated, but seriously, y'all: This Sony VAIO laptop is AMAZING.  Like chocolate cake amazing, except way more expensive.

Sony is so incredibly "with it" (Yes, I really just used that phrase.  Watch out, or I'll throw a "hip" at you, too.) that my laptop came downloaded with Skype.  I've never seen that before!  I am very impressed.

Needless to say, I may never buy another HP laptop ever again.  Here's hoping this one will last me longer than the first two, though, so I won't have to buy another one anytime soon!

Even better than this totally rad (Oh yes. I. did.) laptop, however is that my last year of being a teenager begins

TOMORROW!

Computer Issues

So, of course, nothing in my life can ever go the simple route.

I took my computer to the shop today, thinking all that was the problem was a broken power cord and some screwed up keyboard keys because of a spill.  That's something any computer repair shop can fix.

Well, turns out, the power cord wasn't broken.  There's a short on the circuit board which, long story short, renders my entire laptop useless.  Super, right?  Ha.

The freakin' awesome God-granted news, though?  I have this CD in my grandma's bank, that has money in it, some of which she gives me each semester for school.  She offered to take me to buy a new laptop tomorrow, and she'll pay for it, and just take the money out of my CD when she goes to get my money for the fall out.  Hallelujah, because I kinda need a laptop for school.  Also good is that my mom doesn't have to pay to have this computer fixed because she needs to stretch her money till the end of the month. 

So yay, new laptop, and yay Mommom! :)

Dear world,

Let it be known that my mom is awesome. And I love her.  She's paying to get my computer keyboard fixed instead of making me spend my birthday money on it.  Which she really shouldn't have to do, since it was my fault it got screwed up.  But hey, I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth! :)

Let it also be known that I survived 54 hours alone with Chelsea and didn't smack her.  Put that down in the record books under Greatest Achievements. ;)

Wednesday is my birthday AND I get to go out to eat AND we're going to the beach.  I'd say that's a sweet day. :)

Never again.

Isn't it fascinating how a person can be relatively okay and completely suck the next?  That's just life.  It just gets magnified when dealing with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder.

I am never, ever, ever spending an entire weekend alone with Chelsea when both my mom and my grandma are out of town ever again.

I'm not going to say anything else to avoid saying something that I'll later regret.  I think that's safest for now.

Thank you God for the fact that this is only a weekend and that Mom comes home tomorrow.

Well, I survived.

And I only wanted to shove Chelsea's head through a wall twice, so I'd call that a successful day. ;)

It wasn't a very exciting day.  (Big surprise there, I know.)  I got up at 9:30 because Mom needed me to help her finish packing.  They left at 10. 

I spent the rest of the day either cleaning or watching the Casey Anthony trial online.  Yes, I am fascinated by it.  You're talking to a girl who's been obsessed with Law & Order SVU since she was 10.  I'm so terribly sad that Chris Meloni is leaving!! :(

Chelsea and I promised Mom the house would be clean by the time she gets home   Well, Chelsea apparently thought it'd be fun to clean Mom's room, AKA The Black Hole of Doom.  So I spent a ridiculous amount of time sorting through mail from the past four years because a) I can't go in that room it's so dusty, and b) Mom likes to keep everything. 

Tomorrow is more cleaning and more trying not to smack Chelsea.  One day down, a day and a half to go.

P.S. Put this down in the record books under Most Graceful Moments:  Chelsea was outside when Blake started screaming, so I went to get him.  I picked him up, stepped back from the crib and stepped down hard on a tiny, hard plastic horse.  I nearly fell over but didn't, thank God, and the dang thing actually cut me!  Bravo to me. :)