A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

There’s something hilarious about would-be criminals who make fools of themselves. It makes you want to say, “That’s what you get for trying to cheat your way through life instead of being a productive member of society!” Or something like that.

If you like dumb crooks, here’s a little treat for you: A Tribute to the Criminally Idiotic. It’s a post I did for Web TV Hub, with five videos of some of the dumbest criminals you’ll ever see. If you like it, it would be great if you could Digg it or Stumble it.

I just got a call from a lady who works in personnel at a company I applied at many months ago. Actually closer to a year ago, I think. She wanted to know if I was still interested in a job with them. I said maybe.

I despise the thoughts of going back to a regular job now that I’ve finally made it to working at home full-time. But if the money is good I may take it anyway. With Hubby unable to work, we are in bad shape financially. If I can get a job that pays enough to make it worth my while and continue to write, maybe things will be better.

I went ahead and set up an interview for in the morning. Maybe my lack of enthusiasm won’t show too much.

I should be working right now, but I’m having one of those days… or more accurately, one of those months. I’m hoping maybe a good vent by way of blog post will be cathartic and help me think a little more clearly. So here goes. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Due to the craziness of my life as of late, I’ve been rather spotty in my posting. There’s a good possibility that I may repeat myself, and if so I apologize. But here is how things have been going:

It all started shortly after I gave my notice at my day job. The guy Hubby has been working for kept going missing in action, leaving Hubby with no work to do and little income. I wasn’t about to stay at my day job, because I make more by writing and would be better off doing it full time than sticking with the status quo.

Then, Hubby started having chest pains and had to go to the ER. They did tests, told him it wasn’t his heart, and sent him on his way with no indication of what the problem actually was. We were so relieved that it wasn’t his heart that we didn’t bother asking. But he continued to hurt, and went to the doctor a few days later. They said he had pulled muscles in his chest and side and gastritis. The doctor advised him to take some over the counter meds and take it easy as much as possible for a while.

He told his disappearing boss about it, and they agreed that he would take the week off. The next week came, and he was somewhat improved. But Boss was MIA again for that entire week. If he would have answered the phone I probably would have called and cussed him out, but when Hubby would call it would just ring incessantly. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t know where he lives.

In the meantime, a tooth that has been giving me trouble started hurting really badly. I spent most of one day in tears, and decided it was time for a trip to the dentist. I made an appointment and went in, and they gave me some meds and told me my options for a permanent fix. The one I would have liked to have done was completely out of reach, the other would put a strain on our already meager finances. But I made an appointment to have it done anyway. I had been in pain long enough.

Back to Hubby: He has worked a total of about 2 or 3 days this month. He started feeling much better early last week, but began to complain again a few days ago. Saturday morning when he woke up he said he needed to go back to the doctor. I got him an appointment with a different one, and he told him to double up on the stuff he was taking for his stomach. If he wasn’t feeling better in a few weeks, the doc wanted him to come back and have a light run down into his stomach.

Pumpkin has had a cold since late last week, and has been grouchy and whiny. She seems to be getting over it, but I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I took her to school this morning and my truck died in the line to drop her off, leaving me stuck blocking the road. I had to be jumped off, and when I brought it home Hubby spent an hour fixing the battery cable only to find that I also need a new battery.

And let’s not forget my computer. It has started doing some really strange things. I’ve had to fight with it to edit and save files, and it doesn’t shut down like it should any more. I have to use ctrl+alt+del to even get it to shut down.

Oh yeah, and Hubby got a speeding ticket last month. We would just pay it and be done with it, but I don’t want our insurance to go up. And more importantly, it’s a long story but due to dumb laws in this state he could quite possibly end up losing his license for it even though he has no other points against his license. And that’s the last thing we need. So we need to come up with a few hundred bucks by next week to get a lawyer to help us out with it.

All of these events have left me a nervous wreck, not to mention way behind on my work. And we have pretty much no money. I’m holding on to the money for my dental work for dear life, but if worse comes to worse I’ll end up having no choice but to put that off longer. I won’t get paid for my writing until the beginning of the month, and from the looks of things I’ll be paying the bills and buying groceries on my own next month.

I think that’s everything for now. I still don’t feel much better.

Today I have had the house to myself. Pumpkin is in school, and Hubby went back to work. I thought I would get lots of work done today, but so far I haven’t.

I have a tooth that has been bothering me for a while now, but I haven’t made a dentist appointment because I didn’t feel like we could afford it. But it has given me absolute hell today, so I am going to have to break down and go.

I called a dentist that I have heard good things about, but I was in major pain and wasn’t thinking clearly when I called and accepted an appointment for next month. I took some heavy-duty pain meds, and once the pain lessened and my brain began to function again, I realized what I had done. I’ll call back in the morning and see about rescheduling. I don’t want to call back right now and sound like a total moron.

In the meantime I’ve scoured the Internet for toothache remedies. I tried everything I could find that I had handy, but the only thing that worked at all was warm salt water. It took the edge off a bit. When I get back out to the store I’m going to look for some clove oil or dental gum. I saw those recommended on several sites, so maybe there’s something to them.

For anyone who got here looking for toothache remedies, here is some further reading:

• Toothache Remedies- These are from the International Home Remedies Project. I’ve found good stuff here for lots of different ailments.
• Herbal Toothache Remedies
• Ultimate Cosmetics Toothache Relief- I’m not sure how toothache remedies ended up on this site, but they have a few suggestions. Also lists problems other than dental ones that can cause toothache.
• What Causes Toothache Pain?- Valuable information regarding dental emergencies as well as toothache remedies.

I have been fortunate enough not to have to see a family member suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. But I worked in a nursing home for a short time, and spent a large portion of that time on the Alzheimer’s unit. The heartbreak of what I saw there every day was part of the reason that I didn’t stay very long. Some days I would leave in tears.

The patients occasionally made me laugh, like one guy who would play an invisible accordion. His niece also worked there, and she said he had been a gifted musician before he got Alzheimer’s. He spent his days wandering through the halls, as did many of the others who were able.

Some of the patients were violent, but I was working in a capacity where I was able to keep my distance from them. I could understand why they would be that way, though. If my normal surroundings suddenly seemed foreign to me, and then I was placed somewhere that I really had never been, I suppose I might be a bit combative as well.

The Alzheimer’s Association is currently holding memory walks in cities all over the United States. There’s one in Christiansburg in October, and I’m thinking about attending. It would be great to be a Team Captain and get together a whole group of people to walk. I’m not sure if I will have time or not, but it would definitely be a worthy cause.

If Alzheimer’s has touched you, whether through a family member or someone else you know, you can help by participating in the Memory Walk. You can find a location near you at the Alzheimer’s Association website. Sign up early so you can raise lots of money for the cause.

It has been scorching here in the mountains for the past few days. It has been so unbearably hot in the house that I’ve had a hard time getting my work done. Between the lack of shade and no air conditioning we just don’t stand a chance when it is in the nineties.

I made myself get up at 5:00 this morning and get started working, but I had a mountain of dishes that needed to be attended to as well. So I ended up working on them after I got some writing done. Then I came back to my writing, but was only able to tolerate the heat until about 1:00.

The past couple of days it has been so hot that my office didn’t cool off sufficiently to work until the wee hours of the morning. But today, thankfully, it clouded up and sprinkled a little rain. Not much, in fact so little that I thought it would only make things worse. But it actually cooled things off a bit. So here I am trying to get some more work done.

I’m planning another early morning tomorrow. Hubby is cooking out at his parents’ house and insists that I must be over there by noon, so I’ll have to hustle. I would argue with him, but one of the biggest reasons I quit my day job was not having enough time to spend with him and Pumpkin. So I guess I’ll be there by noon.

I’ve fallen back in love with my digital camera. But I took the memory card out of it and it is working much more dependably. I would like to be able to save more pictures on it, but I usually take them off as soon as I get a chance anyway. So no biggie.

That said, I would love to have a new one that shoots video. There are lots of digital cameras that do, and I should know because I’ve done plenty of research on them. I’m considering a Kodak V705 if I can ever save up the money for one. It’s a 7.1 MP camera with a dual lens and awesome video capabilities. And it would work with the camera dock I already have.

I currently take pictures of Pumpkin frequently, and occasionally snap a pic of something or someone else. But if I had a higher-resolution camera like the V705 I would start taking pictures of sunsets and some of the other breathtaking scenes that one beholds here in the mountains on a daily basis. And with video I could capture some of Pumpkin’s sweetest and funniest moments for posterity.

Maybe by Christmas I can talk Hubby into buying me one. Or maybe I’ll just buy myself a Christmas present this year.

Pumpkin went back to school today. I miss her terribly. But I did manage to get a good bit of work done so far today.

It’s way too quiet without her here. I’m not used to hearing nothing but the sound of the fan and the voices in my head when I work. I think it’s going to be almost as much of an adjustment for me as it is for her.

I hate that we didn’t get to go on a family vacation this year like I had planned. I didn’t get to quit work until right before school started back, and we just couldn’t seem to get the money together anyway. We still have several weekends left before it gets cold, though. Maybe we can still get to do something, if it’s only a trip to Tweetsie Railroad.

Back when White Zombie was huge, I listened to them often. I still rock out to “Thunder Kiss 65″ and “Black Sunshine” every chance I get. But what, you ask, does this have to do with horror movies? Allow me to explain.

If you’ve listened to White Zombie or former frontman gone solo Rob Zombie, you know that their music is laden with awesome horror movie sound effects and sound bites. The local Halloween haunted house often plays Rob Zombie’s albums during their show. Zombie now writes and directs horror movies, and does a fine job of it.

Zombie’s latest project, Halloween the movie, is scheduled to be released on August 31st. It’s a remake of the original movie of the Halloween series. I’m not a horror movie fanatic myself, and it takes a lot to impress me. But the Halloween movies have always been among my favorites, and I can’t wait to see what Rob Zombie will do with this.

If I were to speculate, I would say that he will make it a bit more modern and intensely gory and detailed. The original Halloween was in my opinion one of the best horror movies ever made, and there is little room for improvement. But Rob Zombie is definitely the right guy for the job, and I think he’s going to rock the house with this one.

Check out the trailer below, and mark your calendar to go see Halloween the movie on August 31st.

The phone lines went down this morning, and they just recently got them fixed. That means I have had no Internet for most of the day. It seems like an eternity when you need it for as many different things as I have needed it for today.

The whole thing kind of made me feel like I’m too dependent on the Internet. I had planned to look at the job service’s website for Hubby, figure up how much the payments were on a house we fell in love with, and of course do some work.

If there were no Internet, only one of those things could have feasibly gotten done. I could have gone to the actual job service and gotten job listings. I suppose I could have called a mortgage lender to inquire about the payment thing, but I doubt I would have. And as far as the work, well, I probably wouldn’t have any writing work to do in the first place because I would have no clue where to get started.

I hope there are no long-term outages. I don’t know what I would do then!