Should be using this time to grade exams

It's my planning period, but I don't feel like spending the whole thing grading papers. I've been grading papers constantly all week, and frankly, I'm damn tired of it.

I kept a couple of boys in during lunch to work on makeup work. I'm pissed off that I have to use my own time to do stuff like that, but it may be the only way I can get some of them on the ball. I told these two (and I meant it) that I was tired of them acting like slugs in my class when I've been giving them every opportunity to even turn their work in late. I just want it DONE. I also told them that I have every intention (and I do) of referring them to the special class over at the Alternative School, where they'll be forgotten by all of their friends, and they can go ahead and be slugs if that's what they want.

I kept them after school for "tutoring" (catch up) and referred them for the week of remediation next week, just to catch up. They didn't even take the papers home, even though it would mean probably 10 points just added onto their average for the quarter.

I've given them 9 freaking weeks to get off their lazy butts and get the work in to me. They daydream and sleep instead of working when they have time. And they honestly (and mistakenly) believe they'll be passed on again this year. They won't. They'll be tossed to the Alternative School.

That's why I'm pissed off at them. They cut their own noses off to spite their faces, and I'm left holding the bag and responsibility at the end. I'm tired of wrestling with these two deadbeats. I'm tired of these kids' test scores being solely laid at my doorstep for blame.

Holy cow - most money I've ever had in my life

I just checked my bank balance, and I actually have $18,000 in the bank. I'm thrilled, of course, because I realize that's an excellent down payment for a new home. I'd have about $4000 more if I hadn't bought two new computers over the last couple of years, but mine was dying and I did need a new one. The laptop is just something to encourage me to get out of the house. So far I haven't been brave enough yet to go out in public and just sit by myself working on my laptop.

I should probably try it though. Heaven knows I tune out the rest of the world when I'm blogging here. Oh well, I guess this is my therapy.

I do need some new tires (I squealed around a corner a minute ago - I was embarrassed even though I know nobody saw me. Embarrassed that I let my tires go bald) and definitely a new sofa, but at the same time, I'm not itching to spend that money.

I could do the right thing and "spend" $4000 of it by starting a Roth IRA I've been promising myself for the longest that I would do.

I definitely need a couple of pairs of fall / winter shoes. I wear the same open toe slides nearly every day. Obviously, shoes and clothes are not a big interest of mine.

But I'm not that interested in spending the money, since it took me so long to get to a place where I could actually save. Took me my whole career to get to this point, and the first 3 years I was working back home to be able to pay off the credit card debt I'd run up.

That's what I got for thinking I'd be able to have a second job that was supposed to make me lots of money. Not if you have to buy materials, I don't think. And then there are the inevitable groceries... If you don't get paid enough money for your bills AND food, then you wind up having to charge it.

Commentary by the ex-boyfriend

The rich one who finally grew up enough to carry on adult conversations with me - Sam.

He pointed out that if I looked at my family with an outsider's eyes, I could see that I'm not like anyone in my family. Education, career, home, independence, taste in books, music, and movies..... It's probably why I'm never really happy when I'm around them. He also pointed out that I really don't have any kindred spirits to be around. Is there even a single person on this planet who would be able to stand me for more than a few hours???

To paraphrase, I'm definitely weird, but in a good and interesting sort of way, but that's why I'm so unhappy all of the time. Since I'm too unlike everyone else, it really is hard to find anyone to be with. I know he wasn't saying so, but I think that in this case, being "unique" is its own curse.

He also came up with quite an amusing metaphor. Tofu. I'm like tofu - soaking up all of my surroundings. Come to think of it, my surroundings are junk. Which may or may not have something to do with me feeling like trash all the time.

Too many freaking cardboard boxes

Never mind that the brown recluses just love to live in them.

I went into my spare (craft / junk) room and started pulling out empty cardboard boxes after i filled an entire bag of trash from there. I was a little bit surprised at how much space was cleared out by getting rid of the boxes.

I'm thinking about setting those pink, blue, and green stacking bins out on the curb for whoever to pick up. I don't want them and I don't want to store them anymore.

Cleaning and found...

The last email I got from Thomas, and it makes me feel as bad now as it did 5 years ago when he sent it and basically said, "I'm dying, I don't want to have anything to do with you, and that's why I kept standing you up. "

Most women would get the message after the first time, but oh no, not me, Ms. Give-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt. Looking back, I can see that I was in love with the bastard, but of course that didn't matter to him. Does it ever matter to any of them? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, at least if I'm the one in question.

He said he didn't want to get involved and then die on me, the "I'm doing you a favor" excuse. And of course, the last time I talked to him on the phone, he said he'd met someone and she was there.

Yet another example of me being absolutely, utterly stupid. I believe the words "in denial" applied to me pretty well at that point. It's probably why now I won't trust anyone.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's not to get attached to people. People will always hurt and disappoint you and they won't be in your life for very long anyway.

And Thomas Embrey, if you ever come across this, just know that even though several years have passed, I still think you're a monster for what you did to me.

Got up early

Ha! It was still dark when I took the puppy out!

When I woke up, I didn't feel sleepy anymore, so I thought about the papers I'm behind on grading and decided to try to head to work a few minutes early and work on them.

Think I'll make it?

Well, not if I'm sitting here blogging, that's for sure. LOL

Is this all there is to life?

I come home from work, sit around the house and wait for night, maybe playing a little Warcraft and feeling extremely lonely because I still have to play that alone, even though there are probably thousands of people on the same server at the same time I am.

Then I get up the next day, go to work, and come back home to the same boring routine.

All through the week, I can't wait for the weekend. I don't know why I'm anticipating it so much, because there is nothing for me to do except wait on the next Monday to start.

And when I finally get to the point where I can retire, then what? I'll sit at home and wait to die. There is literally no point to my life, and there never has been. There isn't even anything interesting enough to warrant getting out of bed in the morning. I am NOT going back to school to study something that doesn't even interest me. Grad school was bad enough.

I want to take some art classes, but there are none for me to take. Those doors are all closed and locked to me. Online art classes seem like the utmost of wasting time - if that was what I wanted, I could get the same effect from one of the freaking books I already have here. What's so fabulous about that? Draw in isolation, talk to no one, meet no one, get suggestions from no one. Gee, that sounds great. It's the home agorophobia program, accelerated just for me.

Closure from the dog mauling

Last week, just by chance, I found out the chow that attacked me and tore up my arm and leg, also attacked a student who is now in my class. He has an even nastier scar on his leg than the one on my arm, and he spent two nights in the hospital.

He says that he realized it was me, because the cops killed that dog the night it attacked him, because that was the second record of an unprovoked attack by that dog -- the first time, it bit a teacher. How do you like that?

On the one hand, I'm really pissed because that dog should never have been allowed to live long enough to attack him.

On the other hand, I cheered and did a happy dance when he told me it was dead.

Now I don't have to think anymore about driving past their house and tossing out a little poisoned meat snack for the vicious mutt.

She Crab Soup

I think I'm gonna make some up for dinner tonight to celebrate the first day of fall tomorrow. It's a fall-type soup, and I really should use up the mix that I have while I have fresh milk in the fridge.

Besides, I'm all crampy and I need something warm to make me feel better.

I cleared a massive amount of dirty dishes out of the kitchen, and there's almost enough room to cook on the stovetop now.

I don't really think it'll make me feel any happier, but I was just on the verge of eating another protein bar and figured I should just have a regular type meal instead.

You know, I really wish Pampered Chef would put out a cookbook for me. Something along the lines of "Cooking for One: You know you'll eat all the leftovers in one sitting if you have more than one serving of anything".

I miss Halloween.

I caught myself shopping for Halloween craft books and realized I was shopping for kids I'm never going to have. I really can't decorate my classroom for Halloween safely, because so many people out there have their heads so far up their butts with religion that they honestly think they have the right to keep everyone else from having fun, just because they are afraid to.

I really think that if God had a problem with me liking Halloween, He'd have ensured that I didn't have any fun on that night when I was a kid. Aside from the pseudo-alternate religion silly Wicca and goth type people calling it a religious holiday, it's really no more than a fun folky tradition. Just a good reason to be silly and strange one day of the year.

If you don't want to have fun, fine, but just don't pee all over my parade, okay? Life has so few fun moments as it is.

The truth is, I want to do something creative, like making some of those primitive-style decorations, but I don't know where to begin. One minute I thought, "Hey, you could make all the Halloween stuff you want and just sell it in a craft fair," but then I wised up and realized there is only one craft fair around here anymore, and it's gone to hell in a handbasket over the last decade. I hate to say it, but these days I just go to Reelfoot for the food, mostly.

Besides, I know good and darn well I don't enjoy doing production work, even if it is a really neat and fun project, knowing I'm doing all that work for nothing if nobody buys it. I did sell (or try to) some stuff at the last craft fair I even saw here in town, and it was a horrible disappointment. I couldn't even get anyone to sign up for painting classes with me.

I can't exactly decorate my house with Halloween stuff -- my house is absolutely too tiny, and I definitely don't have a "decorating scheme" in here anyway. It's just day-to-day survival, and this just happens to be my shelter. Being a homeowner isn't that great if you know your house sucks and there's nothing you can do about it.

So I've been toying with the idea of seeing how many original projects I could come up with, and seeing if I could possibly get a book published. But I already feel discouraged, because you have to have an agent representing you just to get a publisher looking at your book. That's such a longshot I don't even know if it's worth the effort. I guess that I could always put one together and get it printed at Cafe Press, so at least I'd have a completed project to show for my efforts. Right?

It's just that voice I keep hearing in my head... the one that tells me it isn't even worth the effort to get started on yet another project that is doomed to failure.

I have an entire freaking library of "how to" books. If civilization fails, I'll be the one making my own soap effortlessly, still able to make sweaters, blankets, and clothes for my loved ones, and good tasting food from scratch, just from what's growing around here wild.

That's really sad, isn't it, that I'm well prepared for an apocalypse?

And I'll say something about our local Wal-Mart "Supercenter" -- they took out all fabric and nearly all craft supplies to make more room for their sporting goods department, and now I can't even find new stuff to play with unless I drive nearly an hour to a real craft store. They even took out 3/4 of their craft paint colors, leaving on the shelves, only the most basic of colors. The ones I already have a ton of, because they're common colors for the decorative painting I do.

Seriously. Do you know anybody else who literally has 25 bottles of sunflower yellow paint? Well, that's my own fault for thinking that anybody around here would actually be interested in taking classes from me. I should never have set up supplies for classes without some of them actually going through first.

The other night I went in Wal-Mart to get a styrofoam cone. I was planning on making a candy tree with it - sticking pins through one end of the wrappers.

They didn't have styrofoam ANYTHING. They had a couple of small things in floral foam, but that stuff isn't the same, and you really don't want the crumbly dust off that sitting on a candy wrapper. :(

Pur Flavored Water Filters

Today as I noticed my legs were too scaly to wear the black skirt I really was wearing, I realized I'm probably dehydrated. Most of the time, I have a sugar-free fake cappuccino with breakfast, a soda at work, and a half-pint of milk at lunch. Maybe another diet soda when I get home, but that's about all.

I just hate water.

I've been told all my life that "water has no taste!" That I was just making up excuses not to drink it instead of something that tasted good.

But I've always been able to taste the chemicals and minerals in tap water. It's disgusting. Of course, when a smoker tells you that YOU can't taste it and YOU can't smell it, you have to understand that THEY have ruined their tasting and smelling mechanism and they're projecting their own tastelessness onto you.

I'd never have been able to convince the stepmother of that, so I stayed dehydrated all the time as a kid. It freaks me out that so many kids end up dehydrated and in the hospital these days - I'd have had to be having a seizure for a doctor to see me when I was sick.

Eww... bad flashback to that intestinal infection a couple of years ago that made me rip open the bridge of my nose and black both of my eyes on the toilet seat. When my fever was finally coming down and the hallucinations had already stopped, THEN it was 104 degrees on my thermometer. I remember beating on my legs with my fists to try to make the hallucinations stop - I was seeing planks of wood floating out of my skin and every single one hurt, so I was pounding my legs to keep the wood from coming out again. I was pretty bruised up afterward, but no amount of pounding or screaming in pain (from the hallucinations - not my fists) made it stop. I just eventually passed out.

I guess it's a good thing that this one time I asked for help. I probably could have died from that without anybody checking up on me. I was so thirsty after all that throwing up that I had called my sister to ask if she'd buy me a few boxes of sugar free jello and some ginger ale, and leave them on my carport steps. Not knowing what was wrong with me, I was afraid for her to come in the house. She brought her younger son with her, and bless his heart, he felt so bad for me lying on the couch that he just wanted to hug me. I remember begging him not to come near because I was afraid he'd catch it. When Dad came over, he didn't know what to do other than sit in the chair across the room and look at me. I didn't know what to do either, so I just looked back. LOL He did me in to see a doctor the next day though. I was so out of it still that I couldn't understand why he wanted to give me a tetanus shot. I didn't mind the shot - I just didn't get why. (Hello? Toilet seat cut your face open? LOL That's actually what the old fella said to me.)

Anyway....
I've been thinking about getting one of those Pur flavored water filters. It's a huge contraption to attach to the faucet, but I can't stand water unless it's filtered anyway, so why not try out the flavored water at the same time? I can drink Propel all day long, but it's not calorie-free, which is what I really need. It would be more handy to me to just get good tasting water out of the faucet in the kitchen at home - I'd probably drink more than just an occasional diet soda.

Happy Bunny socks!

A teacher I work with pretty closely said she's gotten me a present - some Happy Bunny socks!!! LOL

I've been buying Happy Bunny stuff all over the place, because that cartoon character is me all over. Cute, adorable, and a sweet yet nasty attitude.

I should have put that on my Secret Pal form... I just didn't think of it. hahah

I guess I like the snarky little bunny because she isn't afraid to say just what's on her mind (is it a she??) even if it's kinda ugly and insulting. I can't do that. Heck, when I say normal everyday things, they're deliberately misconstrued just to make me look bad. *sigh* I can't decide if that's part of being a teacher, or if it's just part of being me and a lot of people don't like me.

How the heck do I make my peace with that?

Addiction to Dover Clip Art Books

I first started buying these because I needed some vintage-looking pictures for an old-fashioned scrapbook kit I was creating. I had also noticed that a lot of other designers were using them, and some were incredibly successful creating kits without any original artwork.

I'm more into patterns and colors than actual pictures, and I'm not very confident with my drawing skills anyway. It seems like everything I hand-drew got thrown back in my face by someone at the site who complained that they found a couple of stray pixels. I was told by them that I'm supposed to make sure everything is perfect at about 1000% magnification, and completely smooth.

Well, you are going to have pixellation if you blow anything up that large. I think they were just nitpicking to make room for someone more profitable. I didn't leave. LOL I just decided that I would take the option that didn't require me to submit 4 brand new kits a month.

There are tons of stay-at-home-moms who design, and when their kids are off at school, of COURSE they can devote hours and hours a day to being on their computers.

As for me, I not only have a career, I don't have anyone to pick up the slack for me if I get so busy designing that I don't wash the dishes or my clothes, mow the yard, do the grocery shopping, clean the house, unclog the tub and toilet, install towel bars where there were none before, paint the rooms, clean the carpets... well, I'll stop there. Anyone reading this just needs to remember that if they want to look down at me because I'm single and have "all that free time to waste", that I don't have a husband or anyone else to do all those unpleasant tasks for me. I have to do it all myself.

I can't go spending crazy because I don't make that much and there's nobody to fall back on if I screw up my finances. Oh, and my retirement depends completely on me. Nobody else will be helping me out, so even after I put in my 30 years of teaching, I probably won't be able to get to retire on time, even though I have been saving more than your average person. Right now a big worry for me is buying a new house. (I bought this one never intending to stay here forever. I needed equity.) First, I have to get this one sold. Then, I can go looking for another house. I literally can't afford to pay two mortgages at the same time, while this house gathers cobwebs on the market. I worry that I won't be able to afford a nicer house without another 30 year mortgage, which means I'll still be working another 30 years to pay for it.

This isn't a complaint. Just a statement of how it is for me. And a little off my original point, so I'll get back to it. :)

I think what I love most in the Dover clip art line is those vintage Halloween pictures. I remember seeing them when I was a little girl. That was back when Halloween was soft, sweet and fun, and trick or treating didn't involve true terror because some kid was allowed to run loose with a real machete, "as part of his costume".

I just love all the vintage Dover clip art. *sigh* I think that maybe this year I'll design some T-shirts for Halloween and Christmas and put them on my cafepress.com site.

The thing most amusing to me about my Cafe Press store is that the t-shirt design that consistently sells says simply, "Whatever!" Commissioned by my sister originally, I thought it wouldn't do much (like the rest of my stuff, LOL) but people really seem to like it. And that makes me feel good, because that fulfills me as a commercial designer. I did the work, and somebody bought it. I didn't have to make a stack of finished designs and hope I wasn't stuck with them when I finally gave up. All that stuff is printed (professionally) on demand only. :)

I honestly never wanted to be involved in large-scale physical production anyway. I lose my steam after I make a few of anything and nobody seems interested. Furthermore, I had resolved that if I was able to sell a few t-shirts and other items for a dollar or two commission here and there, that it would be worth it to continue designing. As of tonight, I've made $46 commission total - which is okay with me, considering that my only cost for all that has been fees for the site usage, and I haven't advertised ONE BIT. Very low work involved for me, and I get to do what I love most - coming up with creative ideas.

Now I need to flex those imagination muscles and come up with some truly cool ideas. :) I feel a little bit confident.

Funny note - I finally sold something with my "I'm so glad we broke up because I would have killed you otherwise" saying on it: "I'm most interested in a man's heart and mind. Now where did I leave that autopsy saw and skull key?" Inspired by a true event, and I was truly wanting to dissect the jerk and scatter the parts.

I would have thought that seeing me with that t-shirt would make a lot of people think bad things about me, but every time someone notices it, they really laugh. Men especially think it's hilarious. :) Not what I was expecting, that's for sure.

But anyway, I see that Dover has released an old-time Halloween clip art book and I ordered it from Amazon. But now I'm kinda pissed because apparently it won't be available until sometime in October. I want it NOW.

Really should be grading papers...

But when I came home, I needed a nap. And I wound up sleeping for about 4 1/2 hours. Yikes - I guess the past couple of nights, those 2 hours I lost each night caught up with me. And here I am again at midnight. But I'm tired... tired enough that I could go right to sleep, right now.

And I may just do it as soon as I finish my blogging. I have a few things on my mind that are nagging at me. Not important things, just things. Trivial things that I wouldn't want to bore people with in everyday conversation.

I think this go-around, I'm just going to speed-grade their definitions -- instead of minutely checking every multiple-definition word, I'm just going to make sure they have 16 definitions plus sentences. I had them write stories in class today, using 7 lines from "The Landlady". Once they got over their initial grumpiness about having to work and even think about it first, they were (almost all, I'm sure) busily putting together some pretty crazy original stories. That's definitely a writing assignment worth repeating sometime.

Oh, ha ha. I just realized I'm giving them a quiz tomorrow on the story, and I haven't even put it together yet. It shouldn't take me long though - I probably already have a decent quiz on my computer already. It used to be that I could never use the same tests from year to year (well, it's still true with exams). But now that I'm in a school system that doesn't think the English department is the ONLY department that has no use for computers, either in the classroom or for teacher use, I can keep the question banks and old tests, and just alter them as I need. Thank heaven for useful teacher software and computers.

I was going to go to the coffee shop and work on grading those papers, because it would keep me motivated and awake while I worked, but guess what won out? That overwhelming need to take a nap. If I'd gotten there, a healthy shot of caffeine might have kept me awake, but I changed my mind about going. It didn't seem worth the trip across town.

That must be what it feels like...

To be stoned. Not that I'd know - I've never been stoned, though I had plenty of chances. Just seemed unappealing to me.

I got a migraine in the middle of the night, and by this morning, it was really beginning to kick in (kick me in the head, actually) so I took some more allergy medicine. (Generic Claritin D) I'd been off of it for two days and thought I was through the worst of my hay fever, but I thought maybe the headache might be a sinus headache.

By 9:35 it wasn't getting any better, so I decided to take a dose of my real migraine medicine, MaxAlt. This stuff starts working pretty fast, and if it hasn't taken care of the headache within 2 hours, you can take a second dose.

But you have to be prepared to lose consciousness if you take that second dose - it'll knock you out.

I only had the one dose, but by the time we were released for our morning snack break about 35 minutes later, it had started to affect me. Everything was starting to look unreal, and I got in line for food all by myself, without waiting for a friend to be my "oh she's not alone" prop to talk to.

I was thinking, so this is what it's like to be okay with being by yourself in a large public group. I don't care if anybody is looking at me funny. I don't care about anything right about now, except maybe getting a couple of chocolate chip cookies and a diet soda. (I'd already had a regular Pepsi earlier, hoping to get the caffeine cure for my headache, and if I drank another one, I'd feel wretched, so I went for the less evil diet Sierra Mist.)

Got my snack and pulled up a chair (just like a regular person would) beside the art teacher and asked how his session was going - ours was so boring. Chat chat chat... Go back in for the rest of the program.

The more time went on with the speaker babbling about statistics that weren't making any sense in my head, the more silly things kept going through my mind. I had the urge a couple of times to make goofy remarks out loud. And the bad part was that if I did, I knew that at this time I wouldn't even be embarrassed if people stared at me -- I'd probably start laughing hysterically.

Not long after that they dismissed us for lunch, and I decided to go home for a nap. Things were looking a little stranger than they had before, and when I walked out of the room, I could swear that our health teacher gave me a funny look, like I really was staggering. Maybe I was. That whole walk across the gym to my car sure felt like I was walking on a fluffy floor, and I wasn't really focusing on anything but the door.

It all felt really unreal.

I hadn't gotten too far away from the school when I was stuck at a stop sign, waiting to turn. Taking a look at my glassy eyes in the mirror, I closed one to see how the pupil reacted. It didn't. They were both kinda fixed. LOL At that point I realized I'd better hold on to my concentration tooth and nail, because I probably shouldn't have been driving in that condition. But the drive home was uneventful, and I got my short nap in.

I was still pretty messed up when I went back after that - feeling like I was walking on a slightly fluffy floor. haha It reminded me of being tipsy, but without the ickiness. Still had the headache, but I didn't want to take more meds when I still had to drive back home in a couple of hours.

When I did get back home, I just went to bed for about 5 hours, and the headache was gone when I woke up. Yay.

Life has passed me by

I have friends (my age) whose children are graduating from high school this year. Well, the one I'm thinking of specifically isn't the biological father, but still, he missed it by only a couple of years. She won the top honors in the beauty pageant at the local fair, by the way.

My first impulse when I hear about those girls and their mothers pursuing beauty pageant crowns like they're hunting is to think, how vain they all must be.

On the other hand, I have to admit that not having children, specifically daughters, I'm sure that I just can't grasp the correct perspective to not see it as an exercise in vanity. Perhaps it is just my complete ignorance.

I grew up knowing better than to even entertain that notion for myself. Not only were all the boys in the neighborhood constantly telling me I was ugly, but so was my stepmother, and my sister. Nobody ever said anything to the contrary, so I've never truly felt attractive. Not cute, not pretty, and ha ha, definitely not beautiful. It's far too late for any male to brainwash me into thinking otherwise, but by the same token, why would any of them bother?

I can remember when girls my age started dreamily browsing the bridal magazines. Some of them would even buy them when they found that perfect, dreamy wedding gown. I never did look at the dresses, because I was honestly afraid I'd jinx myself. I never wrote my potential new full name when I became interested in someone, like I've seen so many girls do.

I guess I was always afraid to dream about the future, because I had a feeling that if I did, the inevitable disappointment would absolutely crush me. It didn't stop me from trying occasionally, but I always dated warily, as if I were holding my breath and wondering if I'd see the end approaching, or if the guy would blindside me with it. Ambush is REALLY common.

It's crude to put it in these terms, but it seems that they were all just interested in my breasts. Any attempt to get to know me was just to aid in that ridiculous quest to see the gigantic boobs. Even in their 30s and 40s, I've realized that was what they were up to. Not that I'm thinking, oh, they're SO glorious that men are just dying to see them. It's more like freak show appeal. Yeah, they think I'm a freak.

I probably am, considering that I've had a significant breast reduction in the last 10 years, and guess what? They grew back. They really did. They keep on growing even if I'm lucky enough to be losing weight. Yeah, freakish sideshow attraction. That's me. They make me look 4 feet tall and 300 pounds.

The thought has crossed my mind in the last few days that instead of trying to lose weight and look better for some man that's never going to appear in my life, maybe I should just do all the self-destructive things that I know will wind up killing me at a young age.

I'm starting to have hypoglycemia at work even when I've eaten, and I'm having a hard time raising my blood sugar when it happens. The last time, instead of a little instant sugar boost helping me feel better in about 5 minutes, it took 2 hours. I was finishing my lunch and my hands were still shaking and I was feeling faint.

Even then I was thinking, here it comes. Full-blown diabetes. And then came that evil little thought floating around in my head: So what? Why not just let it happen and get it all over with? There's nothing waiting around in the future for you anyway so why prolong it? I could probably let my glucose level get so low that I'd take a nice nap which lapses into a diabetic coma and that would be all. It wouldn't be that hard to do, actually.

My toy box is your toy box

Worth mentioning.

Whenever she had her grandkids over for the weekend, she allowed them to go in my room and drag everything out of the toybox, all over my room, and all over the house. One of them was a couple of years younger than me, and the other was about 3 years younger than me.

Guess whose job it was to clean up after them, even as a kid? Mine.

There were even a couple of times some of my toys disappeared, but I discovered later that she'd given them to her grandkids, who really were spoiled rotten.

There is an ironic element to all of this. Her son married again years later, so his precious kids got a stepmother. And she seemed to be cut out of the same cloth as my stepmother. LOL She would take their stuff away while showering her own teenage daughter with expensive clothes and stuff she wanted. She'd ground them for not making good enough grades, and take away gifts given to them by their grandmother, never to be seen again.

Absolutely hilarious part? Their stepmother acted like she adored me. She was always talking about how smart I was, and how good I was never to be greedy or demanding. Hmm. Maybe part of the reason my stepmother hated her was that she said something nice about me one too many times.

Do you make your kids drink unsweetened white grapefruit juice?

My stepmother's constant statement to us whenever we asked if we could have something was, "We're not rich. We're poor! You can't have that."

Considering that we lived in a decent house in a decent neighborhood and my father was working 8 days a week (literally - a double shift on Sunday) while he was building his retirement accounts, she was wrong to say that. I learned never to ask for anything I wanted.

To this day when someone asks me what I want, I really can't answer the question.

This is the same woman who insisted that when we got new carpet put in our house, the most expensive freaking silky PINK carpet was laid in their bedroom. I mean, this is the kind of carpeting that you don't see in the average person's house. We got brown carpet in our bedrooms, and we were told that because we were kids, we didn't need anything nicer. We'd just mess it up anyway.

For the record, I never messed up that brown carpet.

Her teenage daughter, on the other hand, created huge bleach spots on the yellow formica countertop and was stupid enough to (try to) flush a sanitary pad (one of the big old fashioned ones) down the toilet, and clog up the plumbing horribly.

Anyway, on to the point. Kraft makes jars of cheese spread that hold, I think 4 or 6 oz. of whatever. She'd buy herself the cheese spread, eat it (no, she didn't share), and then save the jars to be used as our juice glasses. We did have decent glasses to use; it's just that we kids weren't good enough to drink out of them. It turns out, at 8 and 10 ounces, they held far more liquid that she felt we should have if we were allowed to have juice.

I'll admit, I have a sweet tooth and I've always loved juice. But I always stayed within the miniscule amounts she allowed us to have - 4 ounces. I never even thought to try and sneak more juice.

Then she started bringing home cans of unsweetened white grapefruit juice. You know, the generic kind that is bitter and hurts your mouth to drink it. That was all she brought home for juice while our father was working out of town. When he got a different job that allowed him to stay with us all week, suddenly the menu offerings changed. I guess she didn't want him to know about our strict dietary restrictions.

And it never failed... no matter how hungry we woke up, we were never allowed a second bowl of cereal. She always bought the cheapest, most flavorless kind she could, unless her grandkids were coming over. Then she'd get decent cereal, and they could have 1, 2 or 10 bowls if they wanted, but we were still only allowed one bowl. Oh, and after the first time she gave them unsweetened grapefruit juice, she suddenly started buying grape, apple, and orange juice when they were coming over.

Now I wouldn't want you to think that the breakfast offerings were a mere torment for us. There were a lot of days when supper consisted of nothing but a pot of white beans. Or a pot of turnip greens. She was fond of saying that we were spoiled and that when she was growing up, babies ate white beans until they were grown and that's all they knew.

I think her point was, "look what I'm made of and how well I turned out" but honestly, a beans-only meal isn't healthy. Sure, there's protein, but no other nutrients that I know of. And she didn't turn out so well.

Anyway, I think that feeding us such an unhealthy diet during our growing years stunted my growth a bit. I think I was probably supposed to be a few inches taller - my biggest growth spurt (an inch) actually seemed to occur when I went away for college. That cafeteria food did give me that extra inch, but i think it was too late to correct the whole problem.

The more I think about my stepmother, the harder a time I'm having forgiving her for her meanness. On the other hand, it makes me feel better letting the world know what she's really like.

Wicked stepmother punishment for not being perfect

I just want to put this out there, because until I grew up and told other adults about this, I really thought it was the sort of thing that happened in all families. I've been told that it isn't.

I don't really know when my stepmother started hating me. Maybe she always did.

When I was in the seventh grade, my history teacher gave us weekly quizzes. Once we made a 100 on the quiz, we got to stop taking them. My best friend (already in Mensa, at that age, and who was convinced I belonged in it too) made a 100 on probably the first quiz given.

I was having a harder, more frustrating time. I'd get miss one or two questions.

She was in as much of a hurry for me to finish with the quizzes as I was. But... she made the mistake of mentioning to me that she hoped I got finished with the quizzes on the next Friday, and my stepmother heard her say it.

She demanded to know what Lynn was talking about, and Lynn explained it.

Little did Lynn know that my punishment for not making a perfect grade was that I had to clean the bathroom EVERY SINGLE DAY until the end of the grading period. Doesn't sound that bad though, does it? For that unforgivable crime of making a B, or even an A, that wasn't an absolute 100, I simply must be punished.

However, my stepmother stood in the doorway every day and made me clean the bathroom floor on my hands and knees. Ceramic tile floor, mind you. It wasn't good enough for me to use a mop, either. I had to get on all fours and scrub the floor with a small cloth. And then I had to clean the toilet, the shower, the sinks and the countertop. Every day for 6 weeks. I'm surprised she didn't make me do it all with my toothbrush.

Of course, this all happened while my father was working every week in a city 75 miles away, and only coming home on the weekends. He never knew about it until I was an adult.

I was a kid - I knew better than to second-guess my stepmother's judgment. I figured Dad would support her anyway. I thought that was what I deserved for not being perfect. That everything that goes wrong in my life is my justifiable punishment for not being absolutely 100% perfect.

When I grew up and started to value myself slightly more, I mentioned this story to a few people who were absolutely horrified. My sister told her mother in law about it once, and finally, I had the word of a "real" adult who said that she was wrong to have done this to me.

Now I have to ask, is it right to demand that your kids are perfect? Or does one do that knowing that they'll fail, and you'll get to gleefully issue some sadistic punishment? The daily entertainment, for 42 days straight.

To tell the truth, I was afraid to say anything to anyone at the time. I thought that people would think I was spinning some kind of Cinderella fairy tale to get attention for myself and to get my stepmother into some kind of trouble.

How many times did I hear, "If you can make As and Bs with no effort, you should be making straight As all the time"? Who punishes their kids for making As and Bs?

Sadie's here (And I'm losing my patience)

My brother in law dropped their dog off over here a day early. I don't think they'll be gone for a full 8 days - who could stand Branson that long? and still, they brought their whiny, untrained, unhousebroken dog over a day early for me to take care of.

• She will not eat anything but hot dogs.
• She already peed a huge puddle in my carpet, and this is only day 1. (No, she's housebroken now, he tells me.)
• She won't do her business when I take her outside.
• The two of them are like children -- it's no fun to wrestle unless they come up onto the couch and do it all across me and the laptop. Every few seconds they knock the power cord out of the laptop.
• Quincy insists that he must get in my face every few minutes, like he's showing me off to Sadie. (Okay, I'll admit it's just one of his lovable ways, but still.... he prances across the keys if I don't catch him first)
• My sinuses are all messed up, and Quincy keeps trying to eat every tissue I get.

*I* am exhausted, so I think it's almost their bedtime.

My Labor Day weekend is being spent sick at home. I'm not really happy about it, but I really don't have a choice in the matter, in any way. It isn't safe to travel alone, I don't have anybody to go anywhere with, and I always get sick right about this time. No medicine ever really helps. I'm all messed up right now and full of sinus / allergy meds that don't seem to have any effect (Claritin-D). I've had nothing to do all day but housework and Warcraft, and neither has been any fun.

Right now my whole sphere of consciousness is filled with how awful I feel, and it feels like I'll never get any better. I'm getting really fitful, and I know before long, I'm going to get really pissed off that my life is nothing more than sitting on this damn couch. I'm already pretty ticked that I can't find my remote. Sleeping won't even make me feel better.... I woke up (still medicated) with a nasty sinus headache in the same area I always have migraines in.

I know, this is one long whiny rant, but I feel bad in so many ways right now.