Blah, Blah, Blog

I'm hurting for blogging ideas lately. Maybe it's because I'm having a hard time following up great blogging material like a trip to Disney, or I'm finally realizing just how boring my life has become. So I'm just going to ramble, and we'll see where that takes us.
Today was forecasted to be 23 or 24 C here, depending on which weather forecast you watched. But here it is, 10:20, and it's still quite cold out. It's actually cooler than when I took the kids to school at 8:30, when the sun was just behind a thin layer of cloud. Now it's behind a thick layer of cloud, and I feel really bad that I told my boys they were fine to wear shorts to school for the day. R has gone on a trip to another school for a track and field day. He'll be outside all day, and I really hope he brought his sweater with him.
Today I have four kids for the day. I was supposed to have six, but two of my three older girls are away, so I have the three toddlers, and one almost 6 year old girl. She is ok with playing on her own, but the oldest toddler, J(2 3/4) is making a real nuisance of himself. He's being rough, loud, and obnoxious (following in his two older brothers' footsteps) and he's driving poor S mental (and me as well!)
We were going to go to the park, or for a walk or something, but it's kind of chilly and I'm feeling like staying home now. We did already play in the backyard this morning.
Tomorrow is Friday the thirteenth. Yes, that's random, I know. Anyone superstitious out there?
This weekend DH is going up to the cottage with a few buddies from school to put the water line in and hang out. Probably do guy stuff, whatever that is. I'm glad he has friends, but it still annoys me that he's going away. He doesn't even ask me if it's ok, or for that matter, bother to tell me to my face he's going. I found out he's going because I overheard him telling his grandmother (yes, the Nan). She owns the cottage as you probably know, and spends most of the summer up there. Then she calls our house or DH's cell phone every few days asking him inane questions and complaining about stupid stuff like the tv isn't working (because she hasn't plugged it in, or the remote's batteries are dead) and asking him to quickly make a two+ hour drive up to fix it. It's VERY irritating, and after spending a week with her and seeing for myself just how deteriorated her brain function is, I REALLY don't think she should be living up there alone. One day she's going to go to bed with the stove on and burn the place down.
Anyway, everything about the cottage irritates me. I hate how we have to give up our time and money to do stuff for it, and don't even ever get to have it for ourselves. I get that in life you give a little to get a little, and to enjoy a cottage, you have to put in the work (or exorbitant amounts of money to pay someone else to do the work). But we never really get to enjoy it. Because to me, enjoying it would be being up there with just my family, without HER, or for once to be able to have friends up there enjoying it with us, or MY family. But I just can't do that to anyone else; make them put up with HER. Everyone has one or two of those people in their family, so they don't need to be subjected to them if they're not in the family. Know what I mean? Plus, for the most part, in order for us to invite up other families, we need HER bedroom.
I've been painstakingly typing away here on my iPod for a good 45 minutes, and the sun is finally starting to burn through some clouds. Of course it's too late now to go anywhere, but the kids are having fun with playdough.
So back to the weekend. DH is going away for most of the weekend, so I am stuck with the boys and all of the weekend stuff to do by myself. Grocery shopping is no fun with them as it is, as they hate shopping, so I'm not looking forward to that. L has a birthday party to go to Sat night, and swimming lessons on Sun morning. Then after that we'll be heading out to see my family. I'll visit my dad on the way to see my mom and sister N. I don't know if my sis S will be around; hopefully I'll get to see her too.
I was hoping to get some more work done on prepping my veggie garden. I'd like to get a few things started, like peas and potatoes and perhaps some herbs too. But all the soil needs to be turned over, and mixed with some bags of organic material or manure. Not a job I like to do on my own.
Well, it's nearly lunchtime, and the children need to clean up, which essentially means I clean up while they wander around the room as I try to direct them to "pick that up and put it here". So tedious.

Disney Update

Yesterday I posted about Disney, and I had a friend read my post and comment about it on Facebook.
She said,"Is there any way to find out what hotel she was thinking of staying in? You could look it up and see what star it is, and if it is an all-inclusive or not. You shouldn't be afraid to ask her for more details, especially if she just said "I want to take you all to Disney with me!" You have a right, without being rude, to ask if she had any plans other than just going!"
I started to write her back, but then thought I should just post you all an update about what I was going to tell her.
Actually, the Nan is having us do all the research, but she has the final say of course. DH is looking up suites, but I don't think there is anything "all-inclusive", a la Carribean resort style. We have seen some hotels with breakfast included, but that's about it. He did ask her about meals, and it sounds like she's paying, so that's a relief. I did express all my thoughts to DH, and he agreed and said he would try to watch himself, both with her and the boys. It set my mind at ease a bit. He also asked her about the part regarding her fatigue, if she wanted to go back to the hotel early and whatnot. She simply said she would bring a book, and to "leave her on a bench and come back for her in an hour". As accommodating as that seems, I don't see that as being very realistic. I just hope we can find a hotel not too far away from the parks, as it looks as though we will be renting a car unless we're right in a Disney resort, and that way if she really wants to go, she can catch a cab or something.
DH did say that the Nan remarked that she wouldn't be waiting for anyone for breakfast, meaning, we would need to get our butts in gear quickly. Now, I don't intend to waste my days sleeping in, but I also don't want someone standing over me huffing and puffing and harping at me that they're hungry. And I know that she is OCD about her breakfast. I've seen that much from being at the cottage with her. As soon as she leaves her bed she comes out to the kitchen, and regardless of who is already in there, or if someone is cooking something, or still sleeping, or whatever, she will basically push them out of the way to get her breakfast.
See, ornery.
Anyhow, DH and I thought it would be best then to either find a hotel that does free breakfast, or has suites, with a separate bedroom and kitchenette. That way, we can have breakfast in the hotel suite and eat when we please.
I just hope that we can get all this booked. It's all well and good to have us research and decide stuff, but until we find out for sure tomorrow afternoon sometime that DH is going to be good to go for entering the States, we can only look but not touch. And stuff is filling up. One of the resorts that looks best suited has like, three rooms left or something, and the flights are getting lean too. We can't be separated on flights. Well, not too much. We can do two, two and one, but I can't leave my children alone to fend for themselves on the other side of the plane! They are definitely not seasoned travelers!

Conflicted

This weekend we had a surprise that DH's Nan sprung on us. She wants to........get this................

TAKE US TO DISNEY!!!



Why then, you may ask, am I conflicted??

Don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful opportunity and a HUGE gift! I don't really know what made her decide to spring this on us, but I think it has to do with the fact that she loves to travel, especially in the spring for some reason, and she has run out of travel partners (she is 85? I think this year). I believe she mentioned taking K, DH's sis, and MIL and FIL, but they couldn't (wouldn't?) go. I'm not sure if that makes us her last choice, or if she was trying for a large family trip.

Whatever.

I am conflicted for several reasons. And here they are:

#1. As I'm sure you heard me gripe about before, we have no money. Yes, I know she is paying for the trip, but that likely doesn't include spending money, food, and definitely doesn't include the money I'm going to lose by taking time off. No work, no pay. I'm not sure about the food part. I mean, how do you ask someone who has generously offered to take you and your family to Disney if she is also going to pay for all your food? You can't. At least not without sounding like a greedy asshole.

#2. She has decided to do it in April, possibly over Easter. Wow, that's soon. Great, in that we won't have a long wait to go on vacation, but not great in that I feel bad giving the parents so little notice of my time off and not much time to try to save anything we can (yeah, right) for all the incidentals. Not to mention give my own kids time to save up their allowances for spending money. Also great that she is thinking of us in that going over Easter break gives me a few days that I don't have to worry about time off, but not great in that it is probably going to be very busy and flights may already be full up. I don't want to be stuck flying on a flight with stopovers, or a flight that leaves at 10:00 at night. (Yes, I know, beggars can't be choosers)

#3. Do I want to stay in a hotel and share my family's first Disney experience with an 85-year-old woman? Do we all have to sleep in the same hotel room? Will we be at her mercy as far as timelines, where to go, where to eat, when to eat? She can be real ornery at times, and extremely stubborn. She and DH butt heads, and me, being a Libra wants nothing more than peace and harmony. Part of why I hate going to the cottage is the awkward tension in the air and snide comments under the breath when she and another family member get into it. And I know that there is no way that we could spend 4-7 days together (it's undetermined yet for how long) without getting on each other's nerves.
And if we do stay in the same hotel room, I just don't think my kids could behave for that amount of time. I would be so tense by the end of it from trying to keep them calm, quiet and respectful, that I would need another vacation/therapy/hospitalization afterward to recover. My kids are generally good kids, but let's face it, they're no angels. They need time to misbehave, have a whine-fest or stubborn moment, or a melt-down from over-stimulation and over-tiredness. I expect that, they're kids. But I know that the Nan will expect excellent behaviour, and DH, who always bows to his family's expectations, will be extra hard on them just to be sure they behave, which won't make it a fun experience for anyone. I'll be tense and annoyed, they'll be pouty, and DH will be...well, he doesn't forgive and forget anything very quickly.

So what to do, what to do...I need DH to convince her that we need TWO hotel rooms. I just really don't think all of us staying in one room will be very good. Never mind that it's difficult to find a hotel room that sleeps three adults! And we should stay on the resort. I know that having the free shuttle to and from Disney multiple times/day will be best. If we stay off resort, in a cheaper hotel, we'll have to rent a car, then we're all stuck at the park together until we all decide to go back. What if she's too tired? She is 85. We can go and go. And knowing that this may be the only Disney trip we get for a long, long time, I want us to make the most of it, which will probably mean spending long hours at the parks.

We do have one issue to resolve first before we can even make permanent plans. DH has to see if he can even enter the U.S. I never blogged about this before, and I won't tell all now, but he recently had some legal trouble (not to worry, he didn't try to kill anyone, or set fire to anything, or anything equally horrible or shocking, it involved his former employer and that's all I'm saying for now...). The court side of it is done, and he's in the clear (as he should be! but still, thank GOD!) but that doesn't necessarily mean that the U.S. border security know that or anything. They are nazi assholes tricky buggers those guards. We tried to cross the border last year, and boy oh boy was that a scary experience! When they swipe/scan/whatever your passport, "things" show up. So we are hoping this "thing" is either not there anymore, or it shows that it's been resolved. Don't worry, we're not going to just hop on the plane and hope for the best. DH has to take a little drive to the Niagara border very soon and see what happens that way. GULP. Keep your fingers crossed!

So there's my dilemma. I'm happy, yet not. To put it mildly, it has me rather stressed out. I'm not excited at all, because I refuse to be excited until I'm actually packing for the trip. Then I'll know it's a go. It's like last time, in October. We tried then, but couldn't go because of DH. I'm just glad we didn't tell the kids. And we haven't yet this time either, so SHHHHHHH!