tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53739382011-04-21T11:39:38.786-07:00Truth, beauty, darkness, and ire. Heavy on the ire. The random focus of a Catholic horror writer, mother, erstwhile rancher, idealist, autism advocate, and shameless gaming and anime fan. Also terror of the high seas. Avast!Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1156815101193131222006-08-28T18:27:00.000-07:002006-08-28T18:31:41.203-07:00

My apologies to my former readers. The new blog wasn't working for me. I simply don't have enough time to attend nursing school, raise a family, have my hobbies, and still blog.Everything is fine, though, I'm just tired a lot and I want to spend my free time in more rewarding ways. Something happened over the past six months . . . I just moved beyond the need to blog.Oh. One bit of news, though.

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1154316570451859422006-07-30T19:52:00.000-07:002006-07-30T20:29:30.823-07:00

I've spent the past day deciding what to do with this blog. The simplest answer would have been to delete it entirely, but it left an unsettled sense that I would be running away from things and leaving them half done.I've now deleted all of my archives except three posts which have been highly linked-to and the posts from this July. I wanted to make sure my more infrequent readers had a chance

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153981978175274712006-07-26T22:15:00.000-07:002006-07-26T23:32:58.290-07:00

So I am still waiting for the financial aid office to disburse my scholarship funds. I'm wondering if they're going to do it in time for me to order my scrubs. If not, well, things are going to be hideously tight again. It's tax free weekend, next weekend, and the way things are looking, we're going to be too short to take advantage of it. Unless, of course, that guy buys the body of our old

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153936098632605802006-07-26T09:55:00.000-07:002006-07-26T10:48:18.746-07:00

You see, that's what annoys me nowadays. We are, basically, creatures of our particular culture. When we explain a "why" of it, we really don't have a reason, beyond "Well, that's the way things are/should be/have to be/ought to work."I've been reading a lot of working mother magazines and websites, out of curiousity more than a geniune belief that they have anything helpful in their pages. This

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153863941062166942006-07-25T14:34:00.000-07:002006-07-25T14:45:41.406-07:00

I've been sick the past two days-- stomach virus of some sort. Nausea, vomiting, the whole nine yards. Today has been a struggle trying to study for tonight's exam-- my brain won't focus on anaerobic chemolithotrophs, no matter what I do. But it's better than yesterday, where I ended up losing my lunch in the street outside the real estate office.So. Just a quick thought, before I trudge off,

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153721430620007882006-07-23T22:28:00.000-07:002006-07-23T23:10:30.746-07:00

I've been reading more blogs than usual the past couple of days. The game server I usually play on is being shipped to a new location, so I am without the familiar comforts of my virtual pastime. So I surf from blog to blog, looking for anything that grabs my attention . . .. . . only to find that blogging, really, is kinda boring when you get right down to it.Reading through a hundred blogs,

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153685518291334412006-07-23T12:51:00.000-07:002006-07-23T13:11:58.413-07:00

Feel really sick today. Meh. Notfun.Anyway, that Time of the Year is upon us-- Back to School, with all its hassles, expenses, and hoops to jump through. I looked at the calendar today and noticed that we're on the last week of July already. So it was time to surf over to the school district's website and find out the important stuff-- when does the 8th grader pick up her schedule, what supplies

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153610861570202362006-07-22T15:05:00.000-07:002006-07-22T16:27:41.686-07:00

So we went down yesterday and signed yet another stack of paperwork about the new house. VA loan application and agreements for this and that, pages upon pages. And since we were down in Temple again to do the paperwork, we drove out to the development there that has the model of home we're building, to take a second look around at things we needed to consider when buying furniture and all that.

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153245287117445522006-07-18T10:44:00.000-07:002006-07-18T10:54:47.230-07:00

Had a bit of a nausea and exhaustion setback over the past two days. Really struggling just to make it through the day right now. I have a lab that's due this evening, which I should be working on, but it looks decidedly unappealing at the moment. I'll have to scrape it together, though, can't afford to lose 20 (basically) free points. She grades labs on "completion," not perfection.Oh well, got

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1153019187734050142006-07-15T19:53:00.000-07:002006-07-15T20:06:29.523-07:00

There are a lot of things you find yourself doing, once you're a parent, that come out of the blue and force you to ask yourself the omnipresent question: How in the hell did they pull that one off?They being the children, of course.Today, we decided to splurge and stop by Wendy's for lunch before we made our week's shopping trip to the grocery. So we took the Tiny Car (it's a V-6 Chevy Malibu,

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152986749481626822006-07-15T10:36:00.000-07:002006-07-15T11:05:49.576-07:00

Well, we signed the initial paperwork for the house this week. We picked a lot (the deepest one that didn't have a lot premium, right down near the end of a cul-de-sac,) and put down the money to reserve it. It backs up on a buffer zone, so no houses will be right behind us. We picked out the brick and the paint colors for the exterior and marked where in the house we want all the cable outlets

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152727643968478802006-07-12T11:01:00.000-07:002006-07-12T11:07:23.980-07:00

Ahem. Read the description. Ire forms a large part of this blog. You're not being forced to read it.I have gotten one extremely negative comment on my post about families, and I felt that the author would probably regret it if I posted it, so I simply deleted it. A good rule of thumb in comments is: If you start out saying "I don't know if I should respond to this", the answer is always No.Which

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152723801195343922006-07-12T09:43:00.000-07:002006-07-12T10:03:21.460-07:00

So anyway, today is day three of my microbiology course. Days one and two covered four chapters of material and we did two lab assignments. Tonight will be a long chapter, with copious notes, and then the review for tomorrow's exam. We're moving right along-- there's only thirteen class days left in the semester and we have six exams, a term paper, and six more labs to go. I'm sure we'll cram it

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152636623799338442006-07-11T09:01:00.000-07:002006-07-11T09:50:23.946-07:00

Over at the largerfamilies blog, they're talking about what kids NEED.Forgive me if I am . . . a little unimpressed by the topic, and how roundly everyone so far seems to be missing it.As far as I can tell, what kids NEED is pretty simple. They need a sense of stability in their lives-- knowing where they're going to sleep that night, trusting that they'll be taken care of. They need food to eat,

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152421550285780792006-07-08T21:54:00.000-07:002006-07-08T22:05:50.346-07:00

We went today to see a model of the home we'd like to build, already built down in Temple. Needless to say, it was huge compared to our current home, with some features that were drool-worthy. The master bedroom is giant . . . we could actually fit something besides our four-poster oak monstrousity into the room. Maybe even a chair and end tables and, who knows, a dresser!It would need some

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152213609674732742006-07-06T12:11:00.000-07:002006-07-06T12:20:09.776-07:00

Oh I forgot to mention that Tony and I finally got the dresser finished for the littles' Jungle Room. We stripped and sanded and all that and eventually got bored of sanding and just primered the darn thing. Tony put on two coats of primer, then a couple coats of khaki paint.You see, to fit the jungle theme, we decided that their dresser should look like a trunk or crate that has been hauling

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1152212576834649152006-07-06T11:16:00.000-07:002006-07-06T12:02:56.910-07:00

Okay, so.I have always "planned for the worst." I am the mom with an emergency bag with a change of clothes for everyone and water and non-perishable snacks in the back of the SUV. I am the mom with a three-day supply of water in the closet and plenty of canned goods on hand. I am the mom who assumes that the kids will get sick on vacation, the cut on your hand will get infected, and the state

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1116955440835675292005-05-24T09:21:00.000-07:002005-05-24T10:24:00.916-07:00

First off, let me say right now that I understand that Catholic Charities runs several different programs (which vary by diocese) for the developmentally disabled and mentally retarded. I am not saying that we, as Catholics, do nothing for the disabled.What I am saying, as the mother of a severely developmentally disabled child, is that we do very little on the parish level to deal with the

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1110170323825275622005-03-06T19:48:00.000-08:002006-07-30T15:07:14.156-07:00

The thing about autism that most baffles me is how it's like a complicated dance for which I don't know the steps. One step forward, two steps sideways, a half-twist, and a shimmy. Followed by a crash with arms and legs akimbo, then dragging yourself up off the floor.Mere has a new habit. A bad habit, you might say.She's begun throwing things away.Things that she doesn't value tend to disappear.

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5373938.post-1106440150438674132005-01-22T15:35:00.000-08:002005-01-23T19:25:42.860-08:00

We've all lost so many to abortion. Brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins of all varieties. Our sons. Our daughters. Our own. We've suffered 32 years of the choice being to kill rather than to allow to live. You might not even know how many members of your family are missing. You might not know how many children of your friends are absent. You can walk through your parish, your

Kitsunenoreply@blogger.com