Life is good

It is. I feel like we have emerged from this dark cave into the bright sunshine.
I'm sitting next to my parents pool watching my kids play. They are getting along and laughing. Last night we had the clients over from the new fishing show. One guy lives in a town near us, the other lives in Ireland. They are such nice people and they like FG a lot. In their honor, we opened a 48 year old bottle of Canadian Whiskey. FG figures his parents have had it since they got married in 1963 and when they got divorced in 1996 we ended up with their liquor cabinet & bar glasses. So we pulled out the 1960's highball glasses & cracked the paper seal on the whiskey & toasted to a great partnership. FG and I felt it was worthy. I agree. It's all part of what is making 2011 so much better than well 2009 AND 2010.
My son has been pretty darn good lately too. Yeah he still gets nuts from his SPD and he's still a space cadet at times but he has been helpful, responsive, cooperative and responsible. I have praised him a lot for his behavior. His sister, well, she's still tough, doesn't give a darn if she gets in trouble even when I take away her precious TV (no, she does not have one in her room, she just loses the privilege to watch theirs in the playroom). But he was like that at 7 too and I expect that by the time she's 10, she'll behave a bit better.
What I am not liking is FG being gone so much. The guys broke it to me last night that they got ANOTHER TRIP planned & paid for in August. At this rate it's a trip once a month! But he enjoys the work & he's getting paid so it's better than the alternative!

I'm still alive

Very very much alive.  Very very much busy.  Yeah yeah, I know that's terrible grammar.  Get off my back. I'm going crazy here!

Summer is half over - wahhhhhh!
Since I've been good with bullets, here's some more if you care to get caught up.

• FG got a new gig.  It sort of fell in his lap with 2 weeks notice to be out of the country on a project for 2 weeks.  He is now producing a new show that involves fishing and travel.  So he went to Ireland for 2 weeks to work.  Right now he's in the Northwest on some lake following the guys around.  In October he's going to the Amazon. As in the RIVER for 2 weeks.  Next spring, back to Ireland and then a month or so later he's going to Nepal.  They will be bunking with some buddist monks.  And he GETS PAID to do this.  Frickin' amazing.
• My job is going along swimmingly.  My boss loves me.  I do the job well and I work hard for the 4 businesses I'm doing marketing for.  It's amazing what I can get done in 15 hours a week and just how much 15 hours a week pulls me away from other things.  I do not miss the toystore one tiny bit!  I heard the manager was badmouthing me.  Yeah, probably because I busted her for being a grouch and was sick of her shit so I left.  I heard business is really slow and it doesn't surprise me at all.  They have the wrong person in there as manager.
• I pulled the kids out of school a week early and we flew to the midwest.  My cousin got married.  I'm the oldest cousin by 15 years so they have always been little kids in my mind.  Now they are in their early 20's and getting married.  Freaked me out when one of them got me a beer.  Then we spent a week in N. WI where I grew up vacationing.  My kids LOVED it.  They keep asking to go back. I thought for sure DD would hate every second of it but she decided to prove me wrong and adore fishing!
• DD and I flew home to finally see FG (our trips overlapped so we went 4 weeks without seeing each other).  DS stayed behind.  He couldn't get us on the plane fast enough and have his aunts all to himself.  I can't blame him, I did the same thing as a kid. I spent all summer with my grandmas and my aunts.  DS stayed 99.9% of the time with my aunt who is his favorite person on earth. 
• DD went to Girl Scout camp in the middle of the woods.  FG and I kept driving and looking at each other like, "Are we seriously leaving our 6 year old here?!"  She couldn't wait to kick us out of the camp.  (What is it with my kids?!  Do they hate me?  Lie to me and tell me they are just well adjusted and secure knowing they can be away from mom and survive.)
• With both kids gone for a week, FG and I reverted back to being DINK's.  We enjoyed ourselves.  Actually I think we kept ourselves busy so we didn't think about the fact our kids were all over the place.  One day we worked from 9-5, had a client event at 5:30 which was Family Night to see Cars 2 (we snuck out since we didn't have kids and saw Green Lantern), then we went out to dinner together at a swanky bar downtown and didn't get home until after 10 pm.  I don't think we've done that since we have had kids!  Then we spent a few days in San Francisco before picking up DD on the way home.
• DS came home 2 days before DD's 7th birthday.  He was not happy to come home.  He had a blast but I was more than ready for my kids to be back under my roof!
• DD turned 7. She had a nice party. She got her ears pierced. 
• Now I'm doing the kid-juggle every day for work.  Thankfully one grandma will take them on Mondays.  A friend who's kids play with mine takes them some Tuesdays.  Wednesdays I work with FG so they just come to the studio with us and then Thursday they have been spending the day with my dad.  I'm off Fridays. 
• Last Friday since they had been shuffled around so much all week without much fun - lots of errand running with the grandparents etc - I decided we would have a super fun day.  We went pottery painting, had a picnic lunch, watched a play, made pizza at home then went mini golfing when FG got home from work.  They had the "best day ever!"  I explained to them that is why Mom works and they have to go do not-such-fun things sometimes.  I think they are old enough that they got it.  They seemed to  understand that the things we did took money and mom has to work for money.   Of course the next day they were at each other's throats all day and I punished them by making them pull weeds.
• I'm trying my damndest to get us to eat better and having a bit more income is helping that.  Tomorrow I get my first delivery of organic fruits & veggies - as local as possible.  We are going to get 1/2 a cow this fall.  I'm starting to get local fresh eggs.  For the past year I've been giving us local raw honey for allergies (works ah-maaaaay-zing!).  I'm anxious to try the fruits & veggies.  It was pretty inexpensive actually!  Almost as cheap as what I pay for non-orgainc stuff at the grocery store.  The cow I'm excited about too.  It won't be ready till fall but they are fed the grains from a local brewery and alfalfa.  No steriods, no hormones, no pesticides.  Happy drunk cows! 
• We may be the only people in the country paying off our debt.  As sucky as it is at times, when we look at where our bills started to where they are now, we are proud of ourselves.  Business is improving, FG's new project doesn't hurt either!  We are still fairly broke and still watching every penny but we could have easily said screw it, and walked away from all the bills.  I know it's taught our kids a good lesson and FG and I have survived through I think the worst of it. 
• I'm getting the house cleaned every other week and FG is no longer speaking to his dad's wife.  If you've read any of my posts over the past few years this will all make sense to you.  FIL finally saw first hand that she is a selfish, money-grubbing bitch.  I don't know that I've ever met anyone as selfish.  But now we are done paying for them to get their house cleaned every week and me working essentially 3 jobs (PTA/School stuff can take up as much time as my paying job!) and scrubbing my own house.  I told FG that if the whole thing went away, fine, he could sell that space and we would at least get income for it.  I only want it because it's there and it's dumb that we are giving it away to his dad's bitchy wife every week.  So yay me! 
• 2011 so far is 1000x better than 2010!