If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

This conference is INTENSE...plus things at work are falling apart. I am on the blackberry, cell phone, laptop 20 out of 24 hours a day. grrr. I miss my kids, and it feels suffocating. All of my blogger friends are reaching out and supporting Lisa at Mid Western Mommy - she just found out she has cancer. She is young, has a young son and a husband who she loves dearly. I have never met her, but feel really attached to her thru the blogger community. She is blogging and checking messages from her hospital bed, please keep her in mind as you pray. Go here and support her.... http://midwesternmommy.com/ Today i left the meeting at 1pm, ditched the afternoon session and I plan to go for a walk, and re-group. It really is a nice town, nice weather and I am learning so much. But a week feels a little long for me....at least today. My son signed up for football yesterday. He seems excited, I am terrified. Every time I speak to him on the phone, he starts crying ' I miss you mommy.&#

Lady Liberty...standing tall and holding strong. *my great-grand parents went thru Ellis Island, may she stand tall. Here we are in Central Park, we walked our feet off, but smiled non-the-less. This is my drunk on the subway photo. Good times! Nikki and I drunk on the subway. No drinking and driving in this city. I began to LUV the subway. Passed out guy at the subway. Notice his hands are full. They contain his keys, wallet, money and cigs. I cannot believe no one ripped him off. On Broadway. Mama Mia was a good show! My favorite homeless man. I paid him $5.00 and he gave me the 'angry' face. He told me to tell everyone I met that if I didn't get what I wanted then I would send 'him' after them. I found him really witty. The guy has a SCREW DRIVER in his nose. YUCK!! Part of the side-freak show we had to see in Coney Island. It was well worth $5.00. Troy (our nephew) won the kitty purse, he is holding for Pyper. He kicked our butts at water guns.

Today i am TOTALLY overwhelmed. Work sucks, I am so TIRED of adults acting like my 7 yr old son and his friends. *but he said, she said. *I am going to take my ball and go home. * No, no wait I am going to piss on your tree. Not before I get to it first - now we have a pissing match. Grrrr... It is Wednesday and I have not unpacked from NYC trip. The suite cases sits quietly on my guest bedroom floor half opened from where we have rummaged thru it for certain items. I dig thru it to get my make-up, socks, and presents to distribute. I have also taken out the dirty clothes, so I could wash them, only to discover that we don't have any detergent (grrr). Did I mention that I arrived home and my vacuum is broken. *grrrr Not that I am a domestic goddess - far from it. But I do need to vacuum a few times a week to pick up the food that Pyper tends to drop. The damn thing is not fixable so now I have go break down and purchase a new one. I hate appliances, just about as

Well somewhere among the mess is my camera with all of my photos. To say we took NYC by storm would be putting it lightly. We set the damn place on fire. I walked so much I thought my feet would fall off, and on top of it all gained 6 lbs. SWEAR. 6LBS.... As a side note, I am not sure how I could gain weight with ALL of the walking we did. Perhaps it was off balance with all of the food / drink. perhaps? Pizza at 11:30 could be the issue - but it was damn good pizza. I won't give it all away, but here is a bit of a tease. - I saw the Naked Cowboy - I went to a psychic on the street; she scared the bee-jeez out of me. ( I called my mother FREAKED OUT). - I saw Mama Mia on Broadway. The boys went to a Yankees game - had tickets right behind home plate. - We rode the subway like no body's business. - I saw all of the normal things (Time Square, Battery Park, Ground Zero, Brooklyn Bridge, Lower E. Manhattan, Coney Island. - A few for the freak in me a) we saw the s

Well, after work today I am heading to the country to stay the evening with my kids at my mothers, then get up SUPER early in the morning (like the a*s crack of dawn). Where I will sneak out of bed, tip toe to the potty, put on some sweats and RUN LIKE THE WIND. *You see that streak - that is me trying to get away before something happens to ruin my plans. People still have a good 12 hours to ruin my plans, and for real, anything can happen with my family. I am going to NYC first thing in the morning. And if Lance is nice to me, I will swing by his fathers an pick him up. *Let's just say, he is teetering at the moment. I could just be too tired to remember to pick him up. But then again, he has promised to drive to the airport at 5:15am - his services may be needed. SMUCK. Grandpa's surgery went well. He was sent home today, he had 60% blockage, they put in a stint and are sending him home. They found a flutter in his heart and are sending off his EKG to be looked over by a

Well, to date I have had 3 different instances in which I have seen ghost. My father seems to think that I may have gotten it from him, but he killed his instinct years ago by doing too many drugs. Now either that is the truth, or it is a good line of b.s. in a moment to try to make me feel better. My first and constant experience is out my parents house, I see / feel the old farmer. I have seen him for years. He actually sits in the recliner, in his worn out/ faded blue jean overalls. From time to time he wears a straw hat, not in the shape of a cow-boy hat, but in the shape of a circle, so he will shade him from the hot sun. We moved this particular house when I was 11, my brother was 13, therefore my sister was 9. It was closer to 19 when I first saw this man, and felt his presence. These days, I politely ask him ' to not watch me take a shower'. ha! I know you may laugh at that, but really. I often wonder if my dead relatives can see me having relations with my

*I need to lighten the mood, so here you go. As an update, I bought mace today - 4 cans actually. I am going to deliver one to my mother, and one to my aunt. I will post about seeing ghost in my lifetime - next, just to give Farrell the scoop. Enjoy the cartoons.

My kids are snuggled deep in my bed, surrounded by each other, pillows and covers. Each breath sounds like 1000 angles singing. I will fall asleep to their breathing patterns, and thank god that I had one more day with my kids. It is 10 pm at night, I am alone, I left Lance in the Country to be with his father. Part of me is afraid, I get afraid of the dark and the things that go bump in the night. *As a side note and another subject line, I see ghost. I have seen several in my adult life. The ghost that I have seen have scared me, but nothing scares me as much as the person I refer to as the Boggy Man. When I was just beginning college I had a stalker. He saw me leaving my mothers office one afternoon, noticed my Webster Univ sticker in the back of my car and followed me to school in STL. He was trolling outside of my mothers office eyeballing the girl who worked the clerk job at the local 5 and dime store. Plus he has ALWAYS had a twisted infatuation for my Aunt, whom I also r

We are planning on heading to the country this weekend, we will be going to grandpa's house, and Lance will stay the week with him. The kids and I will travel back Sunday, leaving Lance to spend sometime with his 78 yr old father. On Tuesday, his father is scheduled to have heart surgery...it is suppose to be a simple surgery. But at 78 yrs old, nothing is simple. The doctors have said, he needs to have some additional stints placed around his heart. He has a leaky heart valve, and they are not unrealistic to the fact that once they get in there, they may find other issues. Bottom line, this issue maybe bigger than any of 'think'. I have not had to deal with alot of death. Nor do I have to deal with elderly parents, my parents are in their mid 50's. So the thought of them dying of old age, is just not at the forefront. But for Lance, he has never really known the life having young parents, therefore they have always been elderly in his eyes. Lance does not do well with

Last night we gathered around the TV to watch the finale of Hell's Kitchen. It was nail biter by all accounts for the DePew household. Over the last few weeks Lance and I would make bets over who would be eliminated, who made the best food, who sucked, and who was funny. Last night was no different. There were two finalist - as usual. But, I semi-knew the girl. Her father is the Citys investment banker, I speak to him on a regular basis. Actually during a Christmas party last year, during casual conversation he mentioned to me that his daughter was going to participate in Hell's Kitchen. I informed him how I LUV Gordon Ramsay - because he is loud, obnoxious and just down right rude. ( Clearly all qualities I luv in my men). The investment banker and I spent the better half of the evening talking about his daughter, and how she was in school and how she was excited to the show. As the show kicked off I got an invitation in the mail to attend a premier party at his hou

Well, I got my hair cut yesterday...it took over 2 hours to get that hair in what the 'dresser' considered a good shape. She went to town with her razor, and when I say went to town. I felt like an Ice sculpture being raped by Edward Scissor hands. She would eye an angle, run the razor thru it, eye it again and my hair got shorter, shorter and more choppy by the moment. But WHY stop there? I asked for tones of brown, to be put in. I asked that I not get all over color. I normally just get highlights, but I wanted to take them out. I am not sure what she heard - because I got all over color and it has a RED tint. The underneath is pumpkin red (SWEAR!). *Bottom line, it is a what I would consider choppy, it has a ton of layers. Layers are hard to get use to, when you are not use to having them. And the color, well if the sunlight hits it I may be mistaken for a ripe pumpkin. My husband HATES it - as usual. Unless it is long, and 80's style he wants nothing to do with it.

Whew we survived the weekend - I think. I woke up at 6am, and stated ' I sure could use another 2 hours of sleep', and with that I rolled over and fell back asleep. Lance came back, 15 min later and reminded me to get up, thank god he was still home or I would have over-slept. My children are BEAT, but they had a great long weekend. ******************************************************************************* Thursday, my day off, I took ALL of the kids to Monkey Joe's in Crestwood. And when I say all the kids I mean all 7 of them ; *Courtney 12 / Paige 8 / Rylan 7 / Payton 7 / August 4 / Grant 2 / Pyper 2 I wore their butts out, and they were asleep before we even left the parking lot. I have been to Monkey Joes and BounceU - Monkey Joe's is good for the little kids, it seemed to have alot more for them to do. Towards the end I state ' come on kids it is time to go.' Grant comes out of one of the sites and he is crying, major croc tears, I 'think' he

It is my day OFF - yeah! My morning started off a bit rough. I am not a morning person, but my children are - gods way of punishing me. *One would think she was brushing her teeth, don't be fooled - she is just playing in the toothpaste. Luckily my feet are ready to go for the long weekend, if only the rest of me was. Coffee, I NEED coffee. Must place 'piggies' on the floor and walk to coffee pot...grr. WAIT...stop the presses. My 7 yr old, who went to bed at 7pm last night, because he was beat from summer play - made me breakfast! SWEAR. He even made me coffee w/ creamer. The child is god sent. I am not sure his father really helped me reproduce him - Lance would NEVER. *I officially dip his arse in gold, and let him choose the activity of the day. He wanted Six Flags, but the rain will keep us away. We will settle on a movie instead. Moment of insanity. Why not share a morning photo of yourself? It looks like a mug shot. And this ladies and gentlemen

Monday night hubby and I went to the ball-game w/ clients. He was well-behaved - for the most part. We arrived in our Cardinal attire, and the people who invited us were still in their work attire. um....really? At a cards game? The man in front of me had a suit on - we had on jeans, t-shirts and flip-flops. We left at the top of the 8th - because we were going to beat their pants off. We left the ball park and made our way to the Broad-Way Oyster Barr. We had a bucket of alligator tails and a grinder - yum.. If you have never been, I highly recommend it. They had live music on the patio, and we could have stayed all night. There were several shirners in the house, and they were dancing their old butts off - they were a really good time. I smiled, laughed and really enjoyed myself. We had to pry ourselves from the environment, reminding ourselves that we still had to drive home, get our kids and get up the next day. ***************************************************************

This was posted from my sister....last night. ******************************************************************************** this comment is not directed to my sister but to all that read the blog. i have now assumed everyone has developed an opinion of me, my husband, and our friends. i desire not to change them but to give a full circle view of me and some of them. i am a stay at home mom of 4 yes 4. and have realized everyone being very bunched up about my actions. well now that i have decided to have time outside of my home and family , i am no longer at every ones constant disposal(oh my there is a person under that mom, sister, aunt , daughter,wife). yet i keep my niece anywhere from 2-6 weeks every summer, my niece and nephew when a snow day arises or a baby sitter cancels. i am the crazy out of control , undependable one.yet i go out of my way to be with family and friends and develop traditions for not just may kids but also my nieces and nephews. i held thanksgiving , have

Well, my post from yesterday had the phones ringing off the hook. Someone ran across my post, and was angry, saddened and put off my what I had to say. And now that i look back i cannot blame them. * However, I would like to state, as I tried to explain last night. This site is for 'me' - it holds a grain of truth, but the rest is just nonsense. It is a place for me to vent, grip, share stories and photo's - and if my friends, family and extended viewers take all of it to heart then you have missed the spirit of what I am trying to accomplish. This site is not designed to spread rumors, give the family topics to discuss or hurt any ones feelings. It is laced with humor, loving remarks, and a few off base - not well thought out post. I must apologize for broadly stating yesterday that about the manner in which Angie may or may not be grieving. I should have never, never, never went there - it was insensitive, shitty and down right wrong of me to go there and place that