Here's Your Sign!

Those jokes by Bill Engvall are appropriate here, but only because no one has gotten hurt yet by my sister-in-law's outrageous stupidity. I've just decided that today is the last day Sylvia will be going over there for babysitting.

Some background:
Yes, Holly is a retard. Of mind-staggering proportions. No. Really. Her husband died of a heart attack almost 3 years ago, and since then, she has dated countless men - ALL of whom have met her daughter after the first date which is often a week after she's met them for the first time. Fine, if she wants to set her daughter up to a possible sexual molestation, there's nothing I can do about it. I can't tell her who to have around her daughter because that would just make me "the bitch" sister-in-law, right? Well, I don't like these guys being around MY daughter. That just royally pisses me off, and it's something I have more control over. I spend my days and nights doing whatever it takes to make sure she's safe, and what does Holly do? She lets every fucking strange guy she meets around MY daughter! MY beautiful angel who tells me out of the blue that she loves me and misses talking to me when I'm not there. MY sweet baby who makes her Lamby and Tiger dance on the couch for my amusement and kisses my boo-boos. Yeah, I'm not wild about my sister-in-law's dating habits.

But today was IT. I saw something that really pissed me off. The next door neighbor, a young, single man, was talking to Holly until I pulled into the driveway. As soon as he saw me, he took off for home. I didn't think anything about it. But he came back over to play with the girls - Sylvia, Bailey, and another girl. He wouldn't come within 10 feet of me nor would he look me in the eye at all. It was almost like he was afraid of me. I asked Holly who he was, and she said he was her neighbor and one of her best friends. My daughter knew who this guy was and had been around him many times, and I didn't even know he existed. He went back over to his house, and the girls tried to follow him into his house. Holly was going to let them go into his house, but I called Sylvia back to me. We immediately left for home. It makes me grind my teeth just thinking about how many times he's been alone with my daughter and has possibly had time to do inappropriate things with her.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I hope I am, but I've seen too many news stories of little girls molested, raped, and/or murdered. Even if my sister-in-law is so fucking retarded as to allow so many men to have unlimited access to her daughter, I won't allow that access to MY daughter. I want her to grow up. I don't want to have to bury her because Holly is a dumbass.

I talked to Andrew about it tonight because it really bothered me. We agreed that Sylvia won't be going over there anymore. He didn't think I was flipping out over nothing. Seriously. This guy gave off some weird vibes because he was more interested in playing with the little girls rather than talking to two adult women. Maybe he's just shy since he didn't know me, but I'm not going to take that risk.

Lazy Fuck

Talking to my brother tonight, he jokingly referred to me as a lazy fuck when I told him I just can't seem to do much other than work or sleep. That's the way I feel because even working isn't going so well. It's taking me a week to write a report I should have finished in a couple of days, and that's the way it's been for about a month now. No, I'm not pregnant, but I do wonder if there's something wrong with me. I find myself wandering the house looking for something so I figure I might as well hit the fridge. I open the fridge door and stare at the food. Nothing looks good. I open the pantry door and stare at the food. Again, nothing looks good. So I just grab a can of soup because it takes almost no effort to open the can, dump it into a bowl, and shove it into the microwave. Or microwave popcorn is pretty easy too.

I find myself sitting here in my comfy new chair staring at my working thinking, "I . . . don't . . . want . . . to . . . do . . . this . . . I . . . want . . . a . . . nap . . . " I know that's not normal for me at all. I'm generally pretty energetic and upbeat despite being pretty overweight.

Which brings me to another point. My weight. I had been losing weight and doing well at it. Then I stopped. I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks. I want to go, I really do, but I just can't force myself to make the time. I get up, hit the computer, eat my meals, work some more, then go to bed.

Enough of this for now. I've got to get my report finished so I can go to bed tonight.

Family Ties

I've discovered recently that I can spend hours upon hours sitting on my ass in front of my computer staring at names and dates of dead people. I can look through pages and pages of US census records without ever getting bored. I've been researching my family history, and I have to say some of it is pretty cool. I've found out that my great, great grandad was a rounder and a dog! He divorced his first wife after knocking her up a half dozen times or more then married my great, great grandma and knocked her up a bunch of times. They divorced in 1876 then he moved back in for a little while and knocked her up AGAIN then left right after the baby was born. After he left, my great, great grandma donated most of her land, I'm assuming due to maintenance, to Olive Branch Baptist Church which was used by the church for the cemetery. The cemetery is where a lot of my family is now pushing up daisies. The interesting part for me is that she was never buried there in the cemetery she donated. Mary was buried, I think, in Garrison Cemetery. What's the dealio with that? Interesting . . . very interesting . . . What's really cool is that I found a copy of the land deed for it.

I've been thinking about my zeal for this research. Why am I bothering? Why does it matter who my great, great, great, great, great grandmother was and that she came from England? The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm a foreigner where I am. I wasn't born in this area nor was any of my family. I have no ties to this area other than my parents and sister. If I left Springfield, it wouldn't matter much to anyone else. I feel like I have no history, and that's what keeps me up until 5 a.m. staring at Ancestry.Com and other geneaology websites trying to figure out who begat who and when and where. I guess it's about identity and displacement issues. I bet a psychologist would hear cash registers ringing if I walked into his/her office. I've got issues . . . Nothing too weird though. I'm not consumed with anger or guilt directed towards my parents or anything like that.

Ronnie wants to hear about the tawdry. That's about as tawdry as I get. I am too busy to be tawdry. And now my head hurts from working so much tonight.

Later, Taters!

Branson Landing

I lied. I don't feel like writing about my geneology research right now. Deal with it. I'll get to it some other time.

We went to Branson for Father's Day. I had planned on going to the park for a picnic, but that's just too cost effective. We drove to Branson and checked out the new Branson Landing. It has a nice view of the lake and many of the shops we have here in town except Disney has a retail store - NOT an outlet. I am hoping they can preorder Disney cartoons when they are released.

It was a hot, sunny day so Sylvia complained about being hot until I bought her a hat, sunglasses, and battery-powered fan at the Disney Store. We walked around and looked at stores I could have looked at here then went to eat at Famous Dave's.

Famous Dave's is at the Landing, too. And it was DELISH. I had a bbq chicken sandwich with jack cheese, french fries, and cole slaw. The chicken was tasty, and the cole slaw was nice and creamy. The french fries were probably the best steak fries I've ever had in a restaurant. They weren't loaded with seasoning but were still very flavorful.

Sylvia enjoyed the little pirate ship play area they have even though I thought about beating the kid who kept ringing the fucking bell over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over . . . you get the idea.

Back to work - I've got a ton to do.

Slap my ass and call me Charlie

I've spent the day on Ancestry.Com and have learned a lot about my family history. Unfortunately, roaming the geneology websites has put me very behind on my work and giving me a headache that makes me want to bash my head against the wall so I'll give you details next time.

Welcome to MY house!

Sit down, shut up, and hang on. There will be more to come later. Right now I'm too busy to write much.