I'm back! I'm back. I'm back?

I don't know how long this will last. I've given up on everything bloggie. I'm still reading! I need to get my mojo back. So for now? I've finally remembered to have comments emailed to me so I can respond at the very least! So where were we?

The holidays were good. I could have used another week with the kids. A week that the youngest wasn't sick and a week not stuck in this house. This house... I don't want to be a renter any longer. We rented this house right after selling ours. We thought we'd be in it under a year. Two and a half years later, still here. It is hot in the Summer and cold in the Winter. It does have three bathrooms and an "outhouse" so we have enjoyed that aspect of it. The house is bigger than the one we owned and we swore we'd never fill it but we have. We're pack rats and I feel the strong urge to purge it all. Toss it, sell it, burn it. I don't care. Just please make it all gone. So we are contemplating our next step.

I never pictured myself living this long in L.A. I certainly never pictured raising kids here. I was panicked with the prospect of our daughter going through the LAUSD public school system. Is it too much to want your kid to be able to walk up the street to the local school? Apparently so. The local school was fraught with problems: teachers, staff, parents, PTO. All with issues. We thought we'd be alright for kindergarten and technically my daughter survived but there was a lot of yelling and every day was much of the same, sitting on a rug and being talked at. That doesn't sound like kindergarten to me. Where were the projects? Where were the field trips? Where was the pretend play?

I was freaking out because I thought we'd be moving out of the city and so I had done nothing in the way of researching other elementary schools or putting my daughter on waiting lists, etc. I heard of a new charter school opening up and went to two informational meetings, emailed one of the board members with question after question, filled out the lottery application and hoped. We heard nothing by the deadline and had given up hope. I was facing the fact that my daughter was either going to the local school with problems or we were going to have to use up all of our savings sending her to a private school. We were still contemplating the move so how far should one take things? Start hocking jewelry? I started cataloging all of our valuables. There isn't much.

Then we got a phone call. She was in. I ran down to the school exactly 7 minutes after the call and filled out all of the enrollment paperwork, turning that in 37 minutes after the call.

So here we are. 2.5 years after we were supposed to leave. Now in a decent school, with sibling preference! Meaning, my son is in, automatically, next year. But what the hell do we do when middle school comes around. We need to get out of here, baby.

Oh, I had my gall bladder taken out the day before Thanksgiving! I thought I was gluten intolerant or something. Couldn't pin it down. Decided self-diagnosis was the way to go. Dammit, burned by Dr. Google again. So when I finally couldn't take it any longer and probably was passing a stone (classy), thought I was dying and was lying on the hardwood floor in a ball, moaning - Chris stood over me and said that perhaps, I might CONSIDER now going to see a professional about my "problem". I booked into the gastrointestinal doc the next day and testing and an endoscopy later I was told the sucker was coming out. After it was taken out, the surgeon said that it was filled with stones and my problems were just beginning so it was a good thing, after all (what the hell?) that I had it taken out. Good, I'm glad I did that. I almost didn't but then I did. Stupid surgeon thought I was having a needless surgery until she actually saw the organ up close. Hello? Ultrasound, blood tests? Didn't you look at any of that beforehand? Do people normally have organs removed for the heck of it?

Let's see...I think that's it. I'm not exhausted all the time any longer. My house is a disaster. I want all of this stuff gone. I just lift stuff up, clean under it, and put it right back. Serenity Now!

/psychotic rant.