Clinton or Trump???

Never in my life have I ever thought about not voting.  I considered it today. I put off voting early. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I did vote this morning though. It has never been hard before. I have gone in knowing exactly what/who I was going to vote for.  I didn't today. I didn't know for sure who it would be until I did it. I even went back and changed it before submitting...twice.  As I sit and watch the results my nerves are shot.  I find myself second guessing my choice. Did I make the right one? I am not sure. What if they win?  But oh gosh what if the other one wins?

America loses.

Life and Stuff...

So I have no idea how long its been since I posted last.  You may get some repeat stuff..

• Ok school has started.  The little kids love their teachers!  I am so happy about this.
• The little one actually asked if he gets to go to school one weekend.  Major change for him.
• He is still struggling in school.  I have noticed it is really hard to keep his attention for long at home and 2 of his teachers have said something about it.
• It is time to talk to the doc about ways to help but the hubby is totally against it.
• It took me over a week to get the oldest boys schedule worked out.  I don't  know why the school thinks it is ok to force my child to take classes he isn't interested in or that are complete crap just because he is taking all honors classes.  Yes I know it is hard to work electives around the honors classes because both are limited.  However they are not making my 16 year old son take a family and parenting class.
• He even decided he would rather take PE (he doesn't need the credit) than the other classes they were offering him.  I find it completely ridiculous  that they cant find a way to offer him something else.
• My husband had to go talk to the superintendent before we managed to even get them to do that though.
• He went to the administration building and asked to talk to him and was told he was in meetings.  When my hubby said he wasn't leaving until someone talked to him they decided to go get someone.
• He was really nice. Told us it would be taken care of and if they didn't work it out for us to let they know he could take one class while sitting in another.
• He also has evidently said something to the Elementary school as well about them not being the food police. If a child wanted to share something he/she was not going to eat they can.
• I love it when someone actually makes sense.
• The older boys are already pushing my buttons with late work and not turning in work at all.  In fact I am ready to beat them.
• I have watched football games 3 nights a week for the last few weeks. Why you ask? Well its not because I love football so much.
• Its because I have a freshmen playing football, a freshman marching with the varsity, and 2 playing pee wee. 
• Between practices and games I am already footballed out.
• The freshman is now 2-2!  The little ones are now 2-1.  They are all pretty excited about it.
• Oh my husband finally got his promotion!  Then he got another one.  Yep my husband went from construction foreman to Project Manager in less than a month.  Very proud of him!

The Eventful part of the tournament...

I know this is long past but it was in my draft folder and I forgot to publish them.

Ok so let me just say I really try to get along with my ex and his family.  I try to never tell them they can have or take my son anywhere they ask.  And I absolutely do not talk about them in front of my son.  I have always been that way.  I feel that it was my choice to leave his father and every boy should have the chance to know and love each of their parents.  That being said I know my ex and his family talk , not necessarily about me but about my husband, our friends, and my sons coaches. 

I had been talking to a family friend (that married into my ex's family). I told her about my sons baseball game.  Since they were playing in  the town that his grandparents live in I thought they should know. I made my son who hadn't gone to his fathers in a while call him up and let him know that he would be playing and to make sure he told the grandparents.

In the last few innings our pitcher wasn't doing so hot.  My sons grandfather decides that he is going to start talking crap about our pitcher. Um Hello that is your grandsons team. You don't talk crap about your grandsons team.  As he is yelling about the pitcher the coach tells him to come on. (yes I know he shouldn't have. But at the same time I cant blame him.  He is going to stick up for his players)  The game ends the kids come off the field do the hand shake thing but my son doesn't.  He is already in tears about what is going on.  How insulting and embarrassing.

Then it gets even better.  My ex and his father think it is just fine to go out onto the field in front of all the kids and confront the coach.  They start to walk off only for my ex's father(we are going to call him D.) to go back out onto the field as the coach is telling him to wait he will talk with him after he is finished talking with the kids.   D announces to the whole team he is sorry. Then tells everyone who he is and what he used to do (which he hasn't don't in like 5 years). Then he says "my sons name" Papa loves you.

I am so made at this point I can hardly see.  Then my ex and his father go out to talk to the coach again.  IF you don't already know my husband is also a coach for the team and has walked away twice because my son has gone off crying. With all the crap being said he says that's enough. Don't do this here and walks off.  (I was proud of him at this point because usually he would have already been fighting).

It didn't help matters that my MIL was there talking about how my ex should be more respectful of my husband. He is after all the one raising my son and takes care of everything my son needs or wants...which is true but man do you need to add fuel to the fire?

Then my ex starts to chase after my hubby. Not a good idea.  He is only going to walk away so many times.  Had it not been for a friend of ours stopping my ex and telling him he didn't want to do that I am certain my husband, the baseball coach, the ex and his brother would have gone to jail/ hospital. While I am grateful for our friend stopping my ex, the whole time he is talking to my ex I am praying my ex doesn't say something stupid because the friend, well lets just say he likes to scrap and he doesn't mind spending the night in jail.

Out in the parking lot my husband told my son he needed to tell his grandparents and his father bye so he did.  My ex's father came and apologized.  I accepted and when he asked if I was still mad I didn't answer.  Hell yes I was still mad but it didn't need to go any farther.  The hubby is the one that let him know after I calmed down it would all be ok. He was right. I still feel like I am not the one they need apologize to.  I was embarrassed but the wrong doing wasn't done to me. It was to my son, our coaches, and the team.  They took what should have been an exciting moment for the team and destroyed it.

My personal feelings about all this is it had nothing to do with what happened on the field or anything to with baseball. It really has to do with my ex not liking my husband, and therefore not liking the coach because he is our good friend.  It was escalated because my ex isn't really the greatest dad.  He hates that I let my husband have input on decisions about my son and I really don't care what the ex thinks or says.  Sorry about his bad parenting. We take care of him, we buy him everything he needs, we pay for everything he wants to do, we make sure he is where he needs to be when he needs to be there, we feed him, we cloth him. So WE make those decisions.

My son finally saw his father again a month later.  The only reason he went is because I made him. He had gone to spend the weekend with 2 of his uncles (my ex's brothers) so I told him he needed to go to his dad's as well.  In six months (since baseball season started in March) my son has seen his father 4 times. 2 weekends, and 2 games (this being one of them).  He thinks he has a right to make decisions...I think not.

Really?

Ok, so this is a rant....a short one. I called Academey today. I went through their little press one for....thing then whoever was suppers to answer the line at the end never did. So I waited for the operator to pick up. No big deal. I am not really in that big of a hurry and really want some information without having to drive 45 mins to get it. Long story short I was disconnected, hung up on, and then they just let it ring. So the next time I asked to talk to the manager and am told yes they have what I am looking for. She will send me to the department for the pricing I am asking about. Wait they aren't answering! She lets me know she is with them right then and they will answer. A) if she is there why can she hand them the phone she is one! B) better yet off she is in the department why cant she answer my question? Any way the kid finally get on the phone. This part of the conversation made me want to pull my hair out. Kid one the phone(kid): May I help you? Me: Yes. I am wanting to know if you have integrated football pants and a price on them. Kid: Yes we have them. Is there a band you would like to know about? Me: I just need a price? Kid:is there anything else I can help you with? Me:I just need to know how much the pants are? Kid: is there a certain brand you are interested in? Me: no. Kid: is there anything else I can help you with? Me: the price. Kid: yes we have the pants. Can I help you with anything else? After about 5 mind of talking to this kid I gave up. Told him I guess he couldn't help me and I would go spend my $10 thousand dollars in uniforms and equipment somewhere else. As I am hanging up I can hear the manager in the background asking for the phone back. I want good customer service no matter how much I am spending, otherwise when I have big orders I will take them somewhere else. You aren't worth the trouble. **** Before someone freaks out about how much money that is. It is for all of our town football teams and its not really that much. However I am finding that it is very expensive to buy all the uniforms. Who knew a Jersey with names and numbers we anywhere from $.35 to 50? And unlike most thing insure goes up in cost per kid them more of them you have. Ok so maybe this is longer than I thought it would be....sorry! Oh and my computer is broken but I have lots of stuff to tell about when I get it up and running again.

Wow! Its been a really long time....

• School has been out for a while now. Its been a pretty great summer so far.
• I cried like a baby the last day of school.
• Leaving the Elementary I realized I will never have another child go there. It broke my heart that my babies are growing up so fast.
• Then I picked up the rest of the kids and realized I wont have any in Middle School next year either.
• OMG! My babies are in high school :/ Ekkk!
• I never did get the older boys report cards. I didn't really bring the topic up because I am pretty sure they didn't do so well the last six weeks. Some of it their fault and some of it the teachers.
• I am not one to place blame on teachers normally but if you don't post your grade until the day before they have to be turned in then I have no idea there is a problem until its too late for me to ask you about.  Also IF my children have more than one or two missing assignments there is a problem and its kind of their job to keep me informed.  Its not as if I am not involved.  I talk to my kids teachers at least once a six weeks and email and every time I think my kids can do better/more.
• Enough of that!
• My kids have been playing tournament baseball.  They do really really great on the first game, ok on the second game, and then bracket play starts and they suck it up.  I mean really really bad.
• I even quit keeping my books one game.
• Then the last tournament they played they in game one they did ok, game 2 terrible, and bracket play started and they played good.  In the semi finals they almost won against a team that run ruled everyone else.  Only lost by one.
• There was one poor kid on the team that had a really bad game though.  He missed 3 fly balls and just could not  adjust the the calls the umpire was making at the plate.
• There will be a separate post about this tournament too....eventful.
• We will play one more tournament this summer. I am excited to see how they do.
• I downloaded an app to keep score on. Its called Game Changer. It is awesome!  Love it. All the kids want to know their stats and it creates a recap story after each game. Win or lose.  I hate reading them after we lose even though it never said bad stuff about the players.
• Its a great app if you like watching and keeping up with stats for little leagues.
• The last week has been a lot of fun but very busy.
• Because of baseball (and football too, I guess) we have become friends with 2 families. 
• I absolutely love these two families. They are sisters.
• They have the most well mannered kids I have ever seen.
• We have cooked out with these two families 3 times in the last 5 days.
• Lots of food, fun, family, and beer.  Oh yeah, fireworks too !)
• Its even better because all of our kids get along and play really well together.
• I am glad to have new girlfriends to hang out with.
• This summer is all about good times with family and friends (that are becoming like family). Making memories I hope my kids will cherish when they get older. 
• We are truly blessed.

Papers...

• My eighth graders have to write a research paper.
• They have been working on it for around 3 weeks now.
• One of them has not done the steps. He is having trouble.
• I think part of it is they have never done research and their first time to do it is a long paper. 1800 words.
• The one that has written all of his paper.. well lets just say its not so great. He uses the words "This is just stupid."  more than once while talking about his topic.
• I remember writing research papers with a ton of had written notes from my research and all the books, magazines, and Internet printouts scattered everywhere for reference.
• The only thing close to that is the boys have note cards they wrote a few facts on.  But 20 note cards is not going to make an 1800 word paper.
• Their papers also don't flow and when I tell them that they just look at me like I am dumb.  One even told me he couldn't move the two paragraphs together because they say the same thing just different words....well duh that's what I am telling you. You jump around repeating yourself for six pages.
• I typed the papers for them. Yes the papers have to be typed but the actual typing is not part of their grade. And it was the only way I could get through the papers.
• I feel for the teachers having to read 120 papers.
• I dont think my kids learned how to do a research paper very well.
• I think easier topics, a smaller paper, and more direction would have been a beter way to start them off.

It's been a while...

• It is hard for me to get on here any more.  All the blog I used to read stopped posting.  It is almost depressing.
• My life is consumed by baseball, baseball, and more baseball.
• It's a good thing I love baseball!
• The boys are doing good. I would say great but since they can't seem to get their school work done they are about to be grounded.
• The oldest one is umpiring the baseball games.  I don't really like it too much.  Parents and coaches get way to out of control.  I don't talk to my kids like that and I don't want someone else to either.
• He is pretty good at it though.  Not perfect.  His strike zone is a little low sometimes.  He calls it the same for both teams though so what more can you really ask for from an ump?
• He would also remember every rule if they gave him a copy of the rule book to read. Man it's like that kid has a photographic memory or something.
• The older boys are going to play on a select team.  The boys wanted to be called the Rejects or the Benchwarmers.
• Thank goodness the coach said no.
• I have spent the last few days looking for camo jerseys.  Its not going to happen.  I am still not 100% sure what colors the team will be but we are getting close.  The coach just needs to tell me which jerseys he want to order so we can get them in before their first tournament.
• The school year is winding down.  There has been alot of stuff going on at the schools lately.
• I was even subbing when they had a lock down drill. It was interesting.
• Between testing, awards, play days, and field trips I don't have much time for anything else the next couple of weeks.
• I cant wait to get the results back for the STARR testing the boys have finished taking.
• We have made new friends.  We had a great time just hanging out. The kids played (they have kids the same ages as ours!) and we had a good time. 
• I think my hubby is done coaching our other favorite sport in the house. (Football)
• Shit is about to hit the fan and we want to stay as far away from it as possible.
• The guy running it has stolen all the money. He didn't pay the bills and next year he wanted to hand it off to my hubby and tell him to start new with all the debt. 
• Not going to happen.  He needs to return the money or face charges.  Plain and simple.  I just don't understand how you can steal from kids and think its ok.
• OH. The hubby is finally getting his promotion! They gave him a date for him to start.
• It took them a while and he had to consider other jobs ( a really good one).  Then his boss said ok I really have to replace my assistant.  I cant keep up with all the meetings and stuff that has to get done.  That is the job he will be doing.
• He is so excited and I am excited for him. Now I just have to get him a new wardrobe so he will look up to par for all his meetings.

I think that's it.  At least for now. Good Night all.