49.

i discovered a beer i like.
i like corona.
a lot!
yum.

i cant believe altoids have been around since 1780. thats a crazy old mint, yo.


im bummed. misty and i were supposed to have a girls night tonight, but she forgot. and then the guy she likes invited her to go gambling tonight with a group of friends. so she told him she was free and could go. and i didnt say anything. but i was bumming. and he picked her up, and then a little later, i texted her and kind of jogged her memory about girls night. and she felt bad for forgetting, but, whatever. she said we can do it tomorrow, but well see how im feeling tomorrow.

so, i finished my beer, and i have to pee.
goodnight.

48.

UPDATE:













Thea was adopted when she was being shown at the petsmart in okemos. good for her! sad for me though, i thought she was adorable. but it looks like tonka and stewie are still up for adoption.


anyway, i had my second interview at petsmart today with the store manager. he said he really liked me and i did a great job on my interview. but he wasnt a dog trainer, so he wants me to come back for an informal meet and greet with one of the trainers so they can get a feel for me and see if they though i would be a good fit. so hopefully ruth likes me!
and hopefully he calls me before close tonight with some days i could do!

so im still super excited. i just hope i know soon (before monday 6/30) so ryan can get his two weeks in. in fact, i think i will call petsmart and see if the store manager has her schedule yet so this can be figured out.

and im going to make some soup, cause that sounds good.

47.

so my interview at petsmart went really well. they brought me in for dog washer, because it was a job offering a career path, but they also touched base on pet trainer, which i said of the two i would prefer. she told me they had a few more days of interviews but that she would take to her store manager about me, and that she thinks i would be a good fit for the company :)

puppies.....! misty is moving in TOMORROW! im excited. nike is the cutest puppy ever. today she called me asking if she could get a second jack russell pup, and 10mos old girl name baby, but i told her i was sorry but no. i said that once im fully trained through petsmart, and nike is fully house broken, crate trained, lease trained and command trained, then we could talk about it.

ryan said we cant have two dogs here. but he also made huge progress making me think one day we might be able to get one when he let me show him a cute puppy on petfinders site. usually he gets furious and yells at me because it breaks his heart seeing the dogs, and he wants a dog super badly, but we cant get one, so its frustrating when i show them to him.
but today he looked, and said "aww shes cute!"

here are the three puppies i want. in order from most wanted to adorable:















Above: This is Thea! She is an 8wk old Beagle Spaniel mix. shes my favorite!!!














Above: This is Tonka! He is a Beagle Coonhound Mix!












Above: This is Stewie! He is purebred beagle!


Thea was/is at the petsmart in okemos today from 11-4 being shown to find a new home. im so sad!! i wish we had the time, money and space to be mature and responsible dog owners right now!!! maybe after im done training academy and ive started working as a professional dog trainer we can get a puppy. maybe. if not me and ryan, then at that point misty will probably be able to get another! either way! i love dogs and i cant wait fr the day when we can actually get one!!!!

until then.. ill just dream i can take home boxes of puppies.
and if you cant tell, i really want a beagle!!!!

46.

i should have figured that the rude kids in the neighborhood who scream and yell outdoors in the middle of the week at 11pm would belong to the rude neighbors who do loud mowing and weed whacking at barely 8am, revv their crotch rockets for 5min in the driveway at midnight on a wednesday/thursday, and go tearing through the neighborhood at ridiculously unsafe speeds on the same crotch rocket. (and in their cars too)

there is a fine line between common curtosy and close knit neighborhood.
you can be a close knit neighborhood where everyone is friendly and knows everyone elses kids, without those kids trampling through yards, screaming and yelling in the middle of the night, and making out on the street.
and where people dont start loud yardwork until 10am.
and the neighbors with the fancy expensive corvettes dont burn out and speed through the neighborhood while there are kids playing on the street.

maybe its the southern polite extreme i was raised in.
but it bugs the crap out of me.
its not controlling
is common freaking curtosy.

45.

ooh gosh.
im pretty sure lana is cutting her top two teeth.
if shes not sleeping.. shes SCREAMING. and i know its cause shes in pain, but seriously, its grating, and it put me in a horrible grumpasaurus rex mood.

i love food network, its the best. it always makes me feel better. especially alton brown. hes great!

i dont feel well. ive been headachey and tummy achey lately. and grumpy and tired. and just sort of exhausted and run down feeling in general.
no, im not pregnant.
i dont know what it is. im glad i have an interview. i hope i get the job because i wouldnt mind a switch with ryan. me work 30+ hrs a week and he stays home with lana.

ok i think im nodding off. and im getting a brand new headache. so imma bounce. see yah!

44.

Screen Actors Guild Strike - June 2008

Predicted strike of 2008

Main article: 2008 Screen Actors Guild strike

The film industry is anticipating a strike by SAG, in addition to the recently resolved writers strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The strike, which could occur after the expiration of SAG's major contracts in June 2008, would stem from the current handling of royalties from the sale of films distributed through new media methods. This includes royalties earned from Internet distribution services such as iTunes, as well as DVD sales, neither of which are currently written into actors', writers', and directors' contracts. The strike date of June 2008 was chosen due to its coinciding with the expiration of several contracts between SAG and AMPTP.

Production companies are bracing for the strike by accelerating production of films and television episodes, in an effort to stockpile enough material to continue regular film releases and TV schedules during the strike period. A list of 300 high-priority film projects is reportedly circulating around talent agencies in accordance with this effort.

"hey, we all make millions of dollars for everything we do, but we want more money anyway."

greedy bastards.

43.

So my food stamps are officially a week late. So i called my caseworker today to leave her another voicemail, and her away message stated she would be out of the office until june 16th. i was FURIOUS. so i said'

"(all my information so she knew who it was) Im calling in regards to my food stamps. I have yet to receive any notification of a change, continuation or cancellation of my food stamps. They are now a week overdue, we have no food in the house, our paycheck was barely enough to pay our bills, let alone to buy food, and my parents had to buy us groceries the other day. I would like to know if you got this finished yet, it is very important. (left my return number)"

absolutely ridiculous. this women is useless and i am very tempted to complain to some sort of superior. its not the first time she has completely sucked at her job. there has been more than one occassion she flat out never called me back. she was supposed to set lana up on medicaid after she was born, called her with all lanas info, never happened. i had to refill all the medicaid paperwork and send it in nearly 2 months after lana was born. now this!!! food is important!! very important!!! she sucks at her job.

if our foodstamps dont reload on or before the 19th, im sending in a formal complaint about my caseworker.

ok im going to snack and maybe smoke, drink some water and go to bed.

42.

i want to live by a coast so i can have really good really fresh, and really inexpensive seafood whenever i want. its so iffy and overpriced in mid michigan.

if i could do anything in the culinary field, it would be asian cuisine. specifically, japanese food. i love japanese food.

but i doubt i will ever enter into the culinary arts.
so instead, i want to be a professional dog trainer. i love dogs, and i want to see dogs trained properly and living healthy happy lives.
since misty is a professional dog groomer, we tossed around the idea of opening our own grooming & training operation.


everything is better. missie and brian brought over some extra food, which helped alot! and then my step mom bought us groceries today. we get paid tomorrow, but it will be just enough to pay the bills. so its good paige took me grocery shopping today, because my food stamps are officially a week overdue, and i have no idea when i will get them.
lana will get her WIC refill friday.

ryan had a really bad allergy attack today about an hour or so after he got our of work. so hes been up stairs in and out of sleep with a horrible sinus pressure headache, and swollen itchy eyes, and itchy sneezey nose. i feel like i havent seen him at all today. ive tried to get him up twice, but hes not budging.

now i have a headache. excedrin, cigarettes and beer, here i come!

41.

you dont know what poor is until you have $30 to make it to a paycheck that will barely pay your bills. when youre relying on lazy state employees to enter your information so you can buy food. when until that bridge card is reloaded, you dont even have enough of your own money to buy groceries for one meal. when there is barely enough extra money to buy a tank of gas to make it to and from your job that doesnt pay you a decent wage, but takes up so much of your time you dont have enough time to look for a new job, much less have an interview. when you cant afford to buy a bag of flour to bake bread. when you have nothing left to eat in your house. when your 7 month old hasnt had any fruits or veggies in over a week, and is eating nothing but cereal and formula for every meal. to have too much debt you cant pay on your credit cards to use them to buy food.
take poverty level, and subtract $10,000/yr.

im so hungry i feel like im going to throw up.

but i know God has a plan and a reason for our suffering.
i still have faith.

40.

so i had my annual dhs food stamps interview on may 13th. my food stamps for the past year have reloaded on the 5th of every month. the 5th of june came along, and they didnt refill. when they didnt refill the next day on the 6th, i called my case worker to find out why. I hadn't received any notification of a loss, change, or continuation of benefits. unfortunately it takes at least 48hrs for a caseworker to call you back. so i didnt hear from her until this morning.

she called me, i was asleep, and she left a voice mail. i listened to it when i got up.
she told me that my case is one of the cases she didnt finish in a timely manner. she was planning on entering it into the system this morning when she got to work. (27 days after the interview, 4 days after i was supposed to get more stamps) but because of the recent storms, the systems were all down, and she didnt know when she would be able to complete my case update.

which means i dont know when we will get our foodstamps.

this is bad, we have no food in our house. we are down to condiments and random ingredients. nothing to make a full meal, and nothing to really snack on either. why dont we just use our own money to eat out or buy groceries?

because we have $45 to last us until thursday. and since ive already taken nearly $300 out of our savings account to get by with bills and what not, we really technically have -$255 to get us by until thursday. $45 isnt even a full tank of gas.

not to mention we have about $250 in bills due this week that we dont have the money to pay, so we will end up being charged overdue fees.

i REALLY hope i get a call from petsmart. ryan is either flat out leaving or putting in his two weeks on july 14th. hes going to look for a pt job so he can go back to school in the fall. but one pt job isnt going to even come close to paying the bills. especially since our new roommate will be paying $100 less then our current one, and wont owe us rent till august 15th. so we will have about a month of bills with essentially no way to pay for them.

ok im done complaining. or stressing, whichever it is.
gotta figure out something to fill me up.
since i havent eaten yet today.
cause my case worker is stupid and lazy.

39. (storms!!)

wow! it has been crazy here. we were in the basement last night until 2am. we were watching the storm on the weather channel website's dopplar and ryan was convinced it was going to miss us. so i texted matt sumner! he called me back and said our area was going to get hit HARD. not 30sec. into the conversation the wind kicked up like you wouldnt believe, there was a sudden down poor, and thunder was booming. the wind was so loud we couldnt tell if we heard the tornado siren, so we checked the weather channel station, and sure enough, there was a severe tornado warning for our area, so i ran upstairs, and woke poor lana up, and we headed to the basement.

then today, we miscalculated the arrival of the storm, so lana and i were napping, and ryan was watching rambo. then the storm hit and the wind woke me up. i got up, looked outside, freaked out, put pants on and as soon as i was in the hall ryan yelled at me to get lana and go to the basement.
ryan watched the tornado form and start to touch down on mt.hope behind our neighborhood. the siren didnt even go on until it was pretty much completely calmed down! but while ryan was watching rambo, the wind knocked over one of the trees in our front yard. it BARELY (miracle from God) hit the house. and when i say barely, i mean it hit the very corner of the gutter and bent it slightly. thats IT. if it had fallen 4ft over, ryan would be in the hospital. he didnt even hear it fall.

so it passed, and we went upstairs, and the WHOLE neighborhood was surveying the damage. we got the worst damage in the neighborhood, but the a lot of trees on mt.hope are completely uprooted, and there is one house behind the neighborhood that had 2 or 3 trees fall on it. the westbound stretch of mt.hope past canal was completely closed off due to severe carnage, downed power lines shooting fire, and someone who died when their RV was flipped on top of them. there was a police chopper surveying the area for about an hour afterwards too.

so the other tree in our front yard is leaning towards the house. you can see at the bottom where the roots loosened in the ground, and the crown of the tree is severely cracked and super leaning towards the house. dan parked on the street in case the wind comes in north to south. im on storm watch duty because were supposed to get another huge storm tonight with random pockets of severe stormage. jim is having the insurance guy come out tomorrow to look at the (currently) standing tree because it will cost the insurance company a lot less to have it taken down than if it falls on the house.

i have to stay up pretty late to make sure nothing too crazy happens. after i watch iron chef america, im going to pack ryans lunch, and then i think im going to move some basic supplies to the basement, just in case. i might get super ambitious and rearrange some things in the basement then move lanas play pen down there and what not. i dunno.

38.

not only is emril annoying because he has absolutely no camera presence, but he cooks in ways an average home cook cant.

i cant afford truffle oil!

37.

my mom will be pulling into my driveway any minute.
the house is clean (enough)
and i haven't eaten yet because i dont want to have to clean more dishes.
lana is in a decent mood, laying in her playpen on the path to a nap.

i am paranoid as hell. i havent seen this woman who gave birth to me, told me i was never good enough, and then sent me away the first opportunity she had, in three years. three years. i didnt speak to her for almost a full year after the last time i saw her over a Christmas break, when every trace of my existance had been completely erased from the house i once called home in chesapeake, va. i was supposed to stay the night there, but i ended up begging my dad to come get me and never make me go back there again.

i have hated her for so long, i never wanted her back in my life. then i got married, and she just couldnt take the time off to come up for thr wedding. then i got pregnant, and she never bothered to pick up the phone to congratulate me. i was beyond furious.

now she has the sudden interest in meeting ryan and his parents, and having a part in lana's life.

i could be like her. hate her so much i rob my daughter of a relationship she may possibly be interested in one day with her grandmother. tell her just because this old pathetic woman begging to stay with us in an alcoholism downspiral may be my mother, but is in no way her grandmother and to simply call her anne... she didnt care when i told her i wanted to know her.

i could be like that, i could rob my daughter of that opportunity. but i wont.
no matter how much i hate my mother
i will never let that effect lana. because i am more mature than that.

although the day lana tells me she cant stand her grandma dana, i will be ecstatic.