Milestones, blessings, and a Rainbow Brite themed 44th.

I came home this morning from dropping the kids off at school – to some big pick-up truck parked in MY spot.

With MY apartment number on it.

Do I know who it is? No.

Do I care who it is? No!

WHY ARE YOU PARKING IN A SPOT FOR A CERTAIN APARTMENT NUMBER – WHEN THERE’S VISITOR PARKING AVAILABLE?!!!!!

This is a small thing. This is truly petty and I’m just jokingly whining about it, but it annoys me because it’s not the first time it’s been done.

I’ve come home a few times and someone is parked in my spot. I don’t recognize the pick-up – to be able to go knock on anyone’s door and ask them to move, and I’m not going to all eight apartments here – to try to figure it out. Still, I almost feel like it should be common knowledge not to park where there’s clear numbers for someone else’s spot. There’s also another big pick-up in one of the visitor’s spots that I don’t know, so I’m going to guess they’re here together – whoever they are.

Thank you to the big red pick-up who followed common knowledge, but this blue one in my spot – who the hell are you?!!!!

Of course, I’m being funny and using humor. I’m annoyed, but at least there was one spot in visitor’s parking open – where I parked, and it’s right in front of my patio door, so it’s not a huge deal, but if I was coming home from a long day at work and just wanted to park in my spot, come in and relax – I wouldn’t be able to.

Part of me wants no part of the headaches that come along with owning a house, but things like this – make me want to start looking for one because I’d like to come home and know that it’s my driveway, nobody is in it – (except maybe my kid’s cars when they get their own), and knowing there will always be parking.

Besides this minor inconvenience just now when I got home, let’s chat.

The weather here is insane!

If you’ve seen the movie “Forrest Gump”, you’ll know the part where he says:

That’s how I feel about this Minnesota weather. “You never know what you’re gonna get!”.

We had a huge snowstorm this past weekend, and Saturday – my son and I couldn’t even get to work.

The roads weren’t plows. Visibility was zero. It was still snowing pretty hard, and since we left the house at 6 AM, it was still a bit dark.

We tried twice to turn the corner and get down the country road by our place, and it was a task.

I like my money. I don’t play about my money, so not being able to try to get to work – wasn’t happening. I was determined, but – nature was even more determined not to allow it.

The 2nd time we turned around to come home, we pulled into the parking lot and saw a crow fly over my car. My son is a bit Superstitious – so when he saw this crow, he made me laugh when he said, “No! Hell no! We’re not going! I’ve never seen a crow just flying around in this weather. That’s something telling us not to go that way. Not to even try to get to work. That’s an omen. That’s a warning!”.

I laughed it off and told him he’s crazy, and that I was going to try a 3rd time when it gets lighter outside in about 30 minutes. We sat in the car waiting, but 10 minutes after we saw the crow – our sirens started going off.

I think I mentioned it before, but our sirens go off for three reasons out here in the middle of nowhere.

–To alert people of bad weather / tornado warnings / watches

–To alert workers / students in the area and let them know that it’s noon (lunch time)

–To call for volunteer emergency personnel to assist regular emergency personnel

I turned on the scanner, and listened to see what was going on, and it was a crash on the route we would have been on if we went to work. Pretty soon, we heard there was another crash, and from what it sounded like – the road we take on the way to work – was closed in both directions.

My son told me, “See? See? We could have been involved in that – if we tried a 3rd time. I knew there was a reason that crow flew over your car. Those warnings are real. Nothing just happens for no reason!”.

Needless to say, I didn’t attempt a 3rd time. We have some great co-workers who went in for us, and we were able to stay home that day. We did carefully drive to the Dollar General around the corner, and get some food, snacks and drinks to stock up on – as we stayed indoors for the day.

I will be going in tomorrow for another co-worker – to make up for that Saturday, so thankfully, I didn’t lose money.

Once everything was cleared from that storm, I was irritated that I looked outside yesterday – and it was snowing again, but – it melted quickly as the day went on and the weather became beautiful. It then started raining yesterday afternoon and quickly got really windy as the rain became snow and rain mixed, and then – just snow again.

I have one friend who always jokes with me and tells me, “You know where it’s not snowing? HERE!”. She moved from IL. down to Arkansas and she’s always trying to get me to move down there. She’ll send me a message, and I’ll hear the birds in the background chirping, and we don’t have that here yet.

I miss that sound!

I have another friend out in IL. who took a video yesterday, and the grass is so green already. Their birds are chirping. The weather is so nice and the sun was out. I’m a little jealous.

I think I need to get the hell out of this state as soon as possible!

……………

In other news, we have a few weeks to go before my daughter graduates.

She is on the “A” honor roll once again for the 3rd time this year. I am so proud of her, and she has worked her ass off to get every credit – every good grade – ever piece of work in, and she deserves the world right now.

She is talking about going to prom – which will be her very last high school dance, and it makes my heart happy and sad at the same time.

I’ve heard that prom ends at 11:30 PM, and then – the school does the afterparty until 2-3 AM, which keeps students out of trouble, allows them to have fun, play games, hang out with friends, win prizes, etc. so, she’s been talking about going to that as well.

This is it!

The “lasts” are here.

She’s growing up.

Not only is this a huge milestone for her – to be graduating – but she’ll also hit another huge milestone when she turns 18 in August. She doesn’t want a graduation party. She’s made that clear, but I do plan to have some of her friends over, or to maybe do a hotel pool / pizza party with some of her friends and still have her enjoy something to celebrate her graduation. 💕 Even if it’s nothing huge.

She made me laugh a few days ago, when she asked what I was going to do when she goes off to college.

I smiled as I was driving and told her, “Go with you! What else would I do? We can share a dorm room!”. She told me, “UH – NO! You have to let me be on my own at some point! I can’t party with my mom there!”.

Me: Uh, you’re NOT going to party! You’ll be too busy studying!

We had a good laugh about it, but I know if she goes to college, it’s going to be such a big change for her, and a little scary at first, but I think she’ll be fine.

She has talked about doing EMT for a while and then going into being a full Paramedic – while also taking classes for her Criminal justice degrees to get into crime scene clean-ups or working in something that has to do with crime scenes.

That is major, and I am so happy and proud she’s on the right path and knows exactly what she wants to do. 🤗

……………..

In other news, does anyone else’s kids have 10,000 socks, but none of them match?! lmfao.

I swear – it never fails. I buy my kids new socks all the time, and by week 3 – the matches are missing.

Once-in-a-while – I’ll get bored and sit down to have a “sock party” as I call it, and I invite all the mismatched socks. 🤣 (Humor of course!). I get all the clean socks together, throw them on the bed or floor, and start matching them up one by one.

My daughter has been telling me she needs new socks for a long time now – because she doesn’t have any or none of hers match. I was in her room a month ago – cleaned it up for her and found at least – 50 pairs of socks that were clean and just needed to be matched. I then told her she better NOT tell me she doesn’t have any socks – or socks that match – again, and I showed her all the ones I found – as she laughed.

My little dude – he has a drawer full of clean socks – and sometimes in the morning – he’ll just throw on whatever socks we can find that fit him – because nowhere on my grave when I die – is it going to say, “She sent her kid out in mismatched socks!”. 🤣 I was bored the day before yesterday, so I ended up dumping out the entire drawer onto his bed, and started matching up clean socks, throwing away baby socks he still had in there that won’t fit anymore, and putting socks that had no matches – in a totally different drawer to do the rest of the laundry and see if they have matches later.

It’s quite the fun time. (NOT!) ha. I know it needs to be done every now and then though.

My little dude – speaking of him – he will be in the double digits this year – as he is turning 10.

Listen.

I sit and think sometimes and while I don’t have it all, and my life could be a thousand times better – or I wish it was – I’m blessed. I have a few milestones coming up to celebrate, I have good kids with good hearts, and they’re kind. I have a job I love. I have some great friends. I have a few great family members. I have my health. I’m still here and this year – I’ll celebrate my milestone of turning 44.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but this year – I want to have fun. Like – really – have fun.

Most of my birthdays are just going to see a movie, going out to eat with the kids, coming home, taking photos, and enjoying a few glasses of wine.

I have no idea how I want to celebrate this year, but I will say that I want it to be exciting and special.

Fun.

Silly.

A few months ago, I was looking up old toys from the 90’s, and I saw a photo of Rainbow Brite.

I used to LOVE Rainbow Brite, and one of my friends joked that I should totally dress up like her and do a photo shoot. She was joking, but I thought to myself, “WHY THE HELL NOT?”. She asked if I was serious, and I said yes. I just might buy the costume from Amazon and do that. She told me I better send her every cute photo I take, and she told me, “Now you have to get a Rainbow Brite cake made and take a photo of you dressed like her – with the cake!”.

You don’t have to tell me twice! 😁

So, my theme this year for my birthday – is RB – and I still have no idea what I’m doing for my birthday, but I’m doing that photo shoot, getting my RB cake, and making it the best damn birthday I’ve had in such a long time. 💕

My kids laughed and asked if I was serious. Yes. Yes, I am!

I always see these videos on TikTok that say, “If you see your mom living her best life and having fun in her 40’s – let her! She spent her 20’s and 30’s raising you!”. Amen to that!

Anyway, I’m about to run out and run some errands, so all of you have a beautiful day and I will respond to comments, emails, etc. and catch up with your writings tonight.

🤗Shel🤗