Bad luck

I swear, Jason and I have the worst luck with tires on our car. When we owned our Saturn, we bought a new set of tires every year and a half or so because the car wasn't designed correctly and wore through them too quickly (and that was with getting them rotated every time we got an oil change). Now the Camry doesn't wear through them the way the Saturn did, but Jason just had another flat tire today. We keep driving over crap in the road and of course they are never patch-able. So J went to change the tire today and discovered that the screws were stripped so he also had to have the car towed to a tire shop. The tow driver said he sees that all the time with people from Firestone (and I'm sure other places) because they get lazy and tighten it too tight with the air gun. So then when you have to change it yourself, it strips the bolts. We had a flat tire earlier this year with the exact same problem. We're not taking our car to Firestone any more for other reasons (really bad service), but here's another reason not to. It's so frustrating!

Haven't had much time to post

I have been so busy trying to finish off the second anatomy & physiology course at my college. Although it's not required for me to take immediately, it is a requirement to graduate from the nursing program, so while I'm waiting to get into the program, I'm taking whatever else I can to make nursing school easier. My goal is to be finished with all the other requirements as soon as I start nursing school. I've only got two classes left now, so I should be able to knock them out next semester. In the meantime, I've been just studying as much as the kids will let me. There's something to be said for not being the first parent home from work. I think I get to deal with all the crap that the kids do immediately when they get home from school and by the time J gets home, it's done and over with. We've been having problems lately with Cole having two little "mommies" that like to yell at him, so he shuts down and annoys them more, so they yell more and the cycle continues. It's times like these that I remember exactly why it is that I didn't want to have three children. I really would have liked four, and even two would have been okay, but three is just about the hardest number you can have in my opinion. There's just always someone that is the odd man out, so two always gang up on the other one. It's very frustrating. And there's something about this time of year that just makes my kids go nuts. Every year around this time they start to seriously misbehave and it just drives us bonkers. So I'm dealing with all that while trying my hardest to study for this final exam. The school that I'm going to is our county's online community college. My thought is that they were afraid that people wouldn't take them seriously because they're an online school and so they made the classes (well, from what I've heard, just the science classes--which is all I've taken so far) so ridiculously hard. Most people don't pass on the first try, and getting a B is a really big deal. So the final exams and midterms are some of the most difficult exams I've ever taken and require a lot of study and concentration--which is hard to do when kids interrupt you fifty million times. So I was just stressing about this final and wanted to be done with it. I had until tomorrow to take it, but my boss was kind enough to let me off work this afternoon to go take it (she said she could just see how stressed I was). And I passed with probably the highest grade I've gotten on a midterm or final yet. My essays haven't been graded yet, so I don't know exactly what my grade will be, but even with a zero on the essays I can't fail. So I'm very excited (not to mention the relief!). I'm one more step closer to becoming a nurse and I've got one less class to reach my goal. Now I can relax and worry about getting Christmas cards done and presents wrapped. Bring on the holidays!

Better weekend

This weekend has been much better. My grandma is back home and the family is trying to find someone to stay with her full time since she can't be alone any more. Our family tradition is to decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving, but since we were in Cali last weekend, we had to bump it back to this weekend. We decorated inside last night and outside this morning. I have to say that decorating outside with Jason can be a little trying--he doesn't have much patience for it. So by the time we were done, I was a little grouchy. This afternoon, we went and picked out our tree, the first time our little family has ever had a real tree. There is nothing quite like decorating the tree to really put me in the mood for Christmas. There are times when I wish that I had a really nicely decorated tree with matching ornaments and ribbons, things like that. But nothing can compare to pulling out the ornaments with the kids. We buy the kids an ornament every year in addition to the ones they make at school and get from their grandparents, so pulling out the ornaments is like remembering all the past Christmases. We have so much fun decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music and just being happy together. I think the day we decorate the tree is always one of my favorite days of the holiday season. It's not about gifts or commercialism (really it's not even about Santa, though we usually end up talking about him a little), it's just a happy time together with my family. This is what the season is all about.

Wanted to post good news

Grandma was doing okay at the nursing home, but today she had another TIA (mini stroke) during physical therapy so they took her to the hospital. We're waiting on the cat scan results to know if they're going to discharge her to the hospital or back to the nursing home. Honestly, she could go any time now or she could last another few years. And I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place because I'm so far away. I don't know if I should be there in case something happens, obviously I want to be there if she goes, but I can't spend that much time away from my family. I went to look for cheap flights between now and Christmas and there aren't any for weekend flights. I was hoping to just fly in for a weekend to see her again before Christmas. It's so frustrating!