Wow...the time sure does fly when your looking for a j.o.b.!! Well, it has been over a month since I was "let go" and basically nothing has come through for me. I have gone back to work part-time with AE until I can find something more permanent.

Since my last post, we have watched LSU lose to Florida, seen the Saints go 5-0 (WHO-DAT), found out that a cousin is preggers with her first, found out that my Yankee friend is preggers with number 2, found out that my friend Noe is preggers with her second boy, Re gave birth to Jon Dawson 8lbs, 12oz, another cousin had her first boy, gone to Austin for a wedding and drank too much Pinot (OOPS), Tay got her first black eye, bought Halloween costumes, taken Tay to the Aquarium with Pop Pop, Dee Dee and Sissy, and generally tried not to think about the fact that I feel like I am sliding backwards!!

Hubby has been really good about keeping my spirits up. I could ramble on and on about how much it sucks not having my income and how worthless I feel doing a job that basically anyone could do, but I wont. I will simply say that I just want a career. I am not sure what that career is but I will definitely know it when I see it. It definitely does not include working nights and weekends (unless the $ is REALLY worth it!)

I want to say a big "hello" to all of my followers and a promise that I will try and do better in the coming weeks and months!!

The cutest thing ever!! Tay brought her camera and took "pictures" of EVERY fish in the Aquarium!! She held the camera up to the tank and "took" tons of "pictures."

Thanks for caring,

K

Hi....I'm still around.

I am on the hunt. I have been sitting at this computer non-stop for the past week trying to find a new job. The hardest part is that I am not quite sure what I want to do, so I am not sure what I am looking for. It is quite a conundrum.

It has been a very trying time for us over at the Carty Casa. I have NEVER been "laid off" from a job before, so not only is this a shock to our wallets it is also a shock to my confidence as well. I am not going to go into much detail but suffice to say that all of this came out of the blue. I had no idea that my job was in jeopardy. I have found out that the following Tuesday (Monday was Labor Day) there was already a new person at my desk. What the heck?! He had apparently interviewed and hired someone else to fill my position and I was non the wiser. That is all I have to say about that.......

We are trying to potty train Tay and it is not going very well. She is just not that interested in it AT ALL!!! I cannot seem to get across the idea to her to tell us before she goes not after. I tried a timer. Every 10 minutes when the bell would go off we would put her on the potty. Several times she would go and a couple of times she would not go, but 3 minutes later she would pee in the middle of the living room and come running legs wide yelling "Pee Pee, Pee Pee" Ugh.... Suggestions and comments are welcome!!!! Oh and why is she sticking her hands in her pants after she goes? Even after poo...!? GROSS!

One more thing, with this unemployment business I have had the unfortunate privilege to have first hand experience with the inter workings of several government programs and departments. If this a precursor as to the way our "NEW AND IMPROVED HEALTH CARE PLAN" (sic) is going to be handled...I hope I never get sick because WE ARE ALL SCREWED!!!!

Thanks for caring,
K

Abracadabra Poop!

The last couple of days/week and a half have been full of craziness. My dad aka Pop Pop went into the hospital last week. He was having some heart racing issues, which we now believe can be corrected with changing up some medication he was currently taking. I won two contests through my blog thanks to some fellow bloggers I will be getting a great new pair of flip flops and a FREE design consultation in the room of choice!!!

The flip flops are courtesy of Rachel over at Sippy Cup Chardonnay for her 100th post!! Apparently these flips are all the rage with surfers in Hawaii and they just started offering them online to us on the mainland. I cannot wait to try mine out! I got the black. Go check her out!!

REMEMBER THIS?
"Kacey, no not Sissy Kacey, Kacey over here at Chronicles of a Mommy is have a give away to celebrate her 3ooth post! Gosh that's a lot. In honor of her 3ooth post she is giving away not one, not two, but three design consultations for a room of choice in my er your house. You could enter to win if ya want, but I'm secretly hoping you don't so I have a better chance of winning. TeeHee. If you have ever been to my house you know that I need it more than you anyway! While you're there take a lookie loo around her blog. Her kids are cootie patooties!" Can you freaking believe that I actually won this!! How AH-MAZING is that?!


AND THEN......this past Friday I was let go from my job effective immediately with no advance warning. When I asked the reason, all I got was, "we are going in a different direction with your position." Thanks. So now I am on the hunt for another job. I am not sure what I hate most the hunt for a new job or the change of a new job! UGH....I hate this $h!t!!

Anywhoo...we have gotten some stuff done around our house. We added a deck to the front of our house as well as paint the entire exterior!! (We-I really mean, Hubby, Dad, Sissy, MIL and FIL-I played baby sitter with Tay) THANKS GUYS!! I will post the updated pics as soon as I down load them off of the camera. Thank goodness we started all of this before I lost my job or we wouldn't have had the money to do all of this work.

I'm gonna leave you with some great pictures we took of "Princess Taylor"
"Princess Taylor with her Minnie Mouse."

"Princess Tay with Daddy and Magic Wand!"

How stinking cute is she?

"Abracadabra.....Poop".....Taylornese for Abracadabra.....Poof!


FYI-I bought the tu-tu before she was born for her announcment pics, yea...didnt happen but she is almost 3 and she is just now enjoying wearing it!!

Thanks for caring,
K
Anyone know anyone who is hiring on the Northshore help a sister out and let me know.

Yada, Yada, Yada

"We are going in a different direction," yada, yada, yada,.......i'm looking for a new job!

Thanks for caring,
K
P.S. Be back soon!

Just made my day!

I've had one hella week and I am so glad that it is the Friday before a three day weekend. This just made my day!

"Who needs a whole shirt anyway?" Please go and check this $h!t out!!!

Longer post this weekend, including some great news!

Thanks for caring,

K

I want to win this.

Kacey, no not Sissy Kacey, Kacey over here at Chronicles of a Mommy is have a give away to celebrate her 3ooth post! Gosh that's a lot. In honor of her 3ooth post she is giving away not one, not two, but three design consultations for a room of choice in my er your house. You could enter to win if ya want, but I'm secretly hoping you don't so I have a better chance of winning. TeeHee. If you have ever been to my house you know that I need it more than you anyway! While you're there take a lookie loo around her blog. Her kids are cootie patooties!
Thanks for caring,
K

The Storm aka Katrina Part 2

To catch up go here and read about The Storm aka Katrina Part 1

We woke up Sunday August 28 and prepared for a long day of waiting. If you have never evacuated for a hurricane basically you hurry up to wait! You try and get the heck out of dodge before it hits only to sit around and wait for the storm to hit and pass.
After discovering that Katrina had been upgraded to a Cat5 and was going to hit some time the next morning we began to realize that even this far inland we were going to see significant rain as well as wind and we were going to be with out electricity for at least a couple of days. This is when we realized that we had left behind a very large industrial sized fan that would come in very handy plugged into the generator. So what did we do? Hubby and I drove back to our house to retrieve the fan (Thank GOD we did!!).
Sitting in the car on the way back to “Mayberry” listening to the radio -FYI by this time NONE of the local radio stations were playing music, they were all news all the time now. They were all giving updates as to when the storm was anticipated to hit, where to go to get water, what schools would be open for shelters, as well as taking calls to try and answer questions as best they could. Several of the Parish presidents were coming on the air stating that Katrina was going to be a very BAD storm and they wanted to let the citizens of their particular parish know that they need to take every precaution necessary to protect themselves and their families. I’ll never forget this, one Parish President stated that if you were going to be foolish and try to ride this thing out then you needed to make sure you had an axe or a claw hammer or some sort of tool because you were gonna need it to break out of your attic to get on to your roof. He was not playing around and wanted all of his citizens to know that this storm was not to be taken lightly and that even many of the “ole timers” were getting out of the way of this thing.

We were all awoken by the wind and rain BRIGHT AND EARLY Monday morning, the day Katrina hit. Naturally, we lost cable first, there went our connection with the outside world so we put in a movie to pass the time. The movie had not even started when a HUGE tree branch went through the window in Sissy’s old room. We (my mom, my dad, Hubby and I) all go and clean up the glass, etc. We return to try and watch the movie. We push play and again before the movie even started we hear this great big “THUWUNK” on the roof of the house. WTF?! It seems that one of the large oak trees in the front yard got tired and decided to lay down on top of my parents house. (slight damage-not much) Taking out the electricity in the process. Well, "I'll be a monkey's uncle" here it is barely 9:00AM and we are without power and someone is already doing shots of Tequila in the kitchen. This is going to get really interesting!
We had a generator so we were able to use the fan (you know the one we went back to get) as well as hook up the deep freeze, the refrigerator and a small t.v. With the help of rabbit ears we were able to watch a little t.v. (Thanks to digital t.v. we will not be able to do now) My dad or Pop Pop as Tay likes to call him loves to cook so we knew that we were going to eat like kings during our evacuation to "Mayberry" and he did not disappoint. With the help of a gas stove we ate Trout Almondine twice. He needed to try out two different recipes. We had survived a very windy and rainy day and night.

Tuesday August 30 Hubby and I were dressed and up and at 'em in the car on our way home by 7:30am! After seeing the damage that occurred around us in "Mayberry" I was starting to get very concerned about our little house. I was really starting to question my choice to finally unpack our wedding crystal the week before. Note to self-do not unpack anything during hurricane season. Why unpack when you might have to repack? or clean up the mess.
When we arrived into town we headed straight home. Well this proved much easier said than done. We tried and failed to get into out neighborhood several different ways. As we are driving around trying to get to our house we notice lots and lots of trees are down on the road, on cars, on houses. We also kept hearing "shhshshshhshshhhhhhh". Continuing on our quest we discovered that the "shshhhhhh" noise is from the gas lines that have been pulled away from houses by the downed tree. Good Grief. There was just too many trees, too many power lines and too much debris to make it in the car. So, we walked about a mile to our house. Over power lines, under limbs, over tree trunks-it was a virtual obstacle course just to get to our street. The closer we got the more nervous we got. I lit a cig and after about 5 drags remembered the "shhhhhh" noise. Brilliant-leaking gas and I lite a cig. We finally made it to our neighbor's house and saw that she took 3 trees through her house. (Eventually the house was torn down-Unsalvageable!). By this point we were reminding ourselves that we had insurance-homeowners and flood, thank you very much-and if need be we could start over. This is the EXACT reason we have the insurance in the first place. Right?!

To be continued....
Did I fail to mention that my in laws live one house from the lake?
Thanks for caring,
K

The Storm aka Katrina

With the up and coming anniversary of The Storm aka Hurricane Katrina I decided to put down my experience. For several months even several years after The Storm one question people asked or were asked a lot in this part of the south, "where were you doing The Storm.” Most of the people I ran into evacuated but there were many who could not and did not evacuate. They have their stories and I have heard many, but this is not about their story this is about mine. Granted it might not be as “good” as others but I did live through it and ate the MRE’s to prove it.

Friday August 26, 2009 a group of us went over to my BIL house to have dinner and play poker. My (then) future SIL had two of her friends in town from Japan and it was their last night in the USA. The night was going really well, except for the fact that my 13 year old nephew was beating everyone. And we weren’t letting him win. B Hubby’s cousin got a text from a friend wanting to know if he knew anything about the hurricane in the Gulf. So we put on the news and for the first time saw that there was a “potentially deadly” hurricane out in the gulf. None of us had even heard of Katrina before that moment. Little did we know that by the time we woke up the next morning she would have turned into a Cat 3 Storm. Which means Sustained winds of 111-130mph and a possible storm surge of 9-12ft

{Category 3}
Tropical cyclones of Category 3 and higher are described as major hurricanes in the Atlantic or Eastern Pacific basins. These storms can cause some structural damage to small residences and utility buildings, particularly those of wood frame or manufactured materials with minor curtainwall failures. Buildings that lack a solid foundation, such as mobile homes, are usually destroyed, and gable-end roofs are peeled off. Manufactured homes usually sustain severe and irreparable damage. Flooding near the coast destroys smaller structures, while larger structures are struck by floating debris. Additionally, terrain may be flooded well inland.[10]
jacked from here.

I got up Saturday morning and went to work not knowing what Katrina was going to do or what we (Tay was not born yet) were going to do. (stay or pack up and evacuate)
*Sidebar*-Hubby grew up one house from Lake Pontchartrain so he was use to packing up, moving stuff to higher ground (including the cars) and evacuation. I however, grew up just 20 minutes inland and had NEVER had to do ANY of this! *
At the time I worked as a manager for national retail clothing store. They knew even less about what we should do. So, we start to notice that people are lining up across the street to get gas and everyone is heading out of town. We are getting calls from kids that are not coming into work because they are evacuating with the families. I get a phone call from my Hubby saying that he has been watching the news and they are calling for voluntary evacuation of our area and a Mandatory evacuation of area south of I-12. That would be us. It is serious. So we formulate a plan at work to close @ 2:00pm and keep the store closed until further notice or until at least Tuesday August 30, after The Storm has passed. Wednesday at the latest. We go on about out business and start preparing the store incase the power goes out or if we get any water in the store. We left around 1pm so we could all get home pack our $h!t and get the hell out of town. By the time I got home Hubby had packed up the car including pictures, paintings off the walls, and had started putting stuff on top of the beds and on high shelves. I was a little freaked out. We decided to evacuate to my parents house 25 miles inland. A trip that usually takes us 1/2 an hour at the longest took over 3.5 hours that day. I really could not complain because I knew people that sat in traffic for upwards of 10 hours trying to get anywhere. We get to "Mayberry" and unpack our stuff and settle in for the next couple of days. Over night Katrina had doubled in size and Sunday morning we woke up to a Cat5. Sustained winds 131-155mph and a possible storm surge 13-18ft.

{Category 5}
Category 5 is the highest category a tropical cyclone can obtain in the Saffir-Simpson scale. These storms cause complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings, and some complete building failures with small utility buildings blown over or away. Collapse of many wide-span roofs and walls, especially those with no interior supports, is common. Very heavy and irreparable damage to many wood frame structures and total destruction to mobile/manufactured homes is prevalent. Only a few types of structures are capable of surviving intact, and only if located at least three to five miles (four to eight km) inland. They include office, condominium and apartment buildings and hotels that are of solid concrete or steel frame construction, public multi-story concrete parking garages, and residences that are made of either reinforced brick or concrete/cement block and have hipped roofs with slopes of no less than 35 degrees from horizontal and no overhangs of any kind, and if the windows are either made of hurricane resistant safety glass or covered with shutters.[10]
The storm's flooding causes major damage to the lower floors of all structures near the shoreline, and many coastal structures can be completely flattened or washed away by the storm surge. Storm surge damage can occur up to four city blocks inland, with flooding, depending on terrain, reaching six to seven blocks inland. Massive evacuation of residential areas may be required if the hurricane threatens populated areas.[10]
jacked from here.

To be continued.....
Oh did I mention we live a half a block from Lake Ponchartrain?
Thanks for caring,
K

Randomness and a shout out for some help.

This is my first time participating in The UnMom's Random Tuesday Thoughts. Go see all the other randomness that is floating around out there.

I Loathe wet socks. When I have socks on and step in something wet it completely skeeves me out.

I do not like my food to touch. It is ruined if the juice from one food gets into the other. (I just Gagged!)

I do not eat the ass end of the bread. I leave the "special pieces" for Hubby.

Leftovers and I are not friends. Especially left over rice! Yuck.

I LOVE sunflower seeds. Maybe it was because I spent my entire summers growing up playing ball.

I like ketchup on my hamburgers and some fries, but I don't like ketchup alone. If it gets on my fingers I won't like it off. It is gross.

My daughter ate a ketchup sandwich the other day. I couldn't watch her eat it.

Don't talk when one of my favorite shows is on television. You can talk at commercial breaks.

My handwriting SUCKS!! Everyone always says I have the handwriting of a boy. I don't care.

Is is true that they are no longer teaching cursive in schools? I started a journal for my daughter when she was born. I wrote in script. Does that mean she won't be able to read it?!

I am co-hosting a baby shower this weekend. I am hoping to catch up with some "old" friends. I hope my daughter does not act like an ass. She's 2.5 her moods change quicker than mine.

We painted the door to our house Sunday. RED! I like it.

I cannot wait until it is Fall.

We are going to Austin for a wedding in October and I am already sad about leaving Tay. If anyone has been there and can recommend hotels/restaurants/shopping, etc. please pass it on. We have never been there and cannot wait to experience this great city.

I NEED A HUGE FAVOR- Pretty please with brown sugar on top--I need someone who lives near an Ikea to do a little shopping for me. I need some window hardware that is of course not available online and the closest Ikea is a 6 hour car drive from here. Hubby works for a shipping company-(not going to say which one but we do not like the color BROWN in our household) so shipping will not be a problem. Please email me kscarty@gmail.com and we'll talk. Thank you.

I have not had a cigarette in 14 days, and yes I am counting. I use to smoke-ALOT. EVERYONE smoked when I was in college. There were a few of my friends who did not smoke, but they were the exception not the rule. Before I got preggers I had cut back to mainly smoking when I drank. I of course ceased drinking when I got preggers so giving up the cigs was not that difficult. After Tay was born I would only pick up a cig if I was not going to be returning home, which usually involved drinks anyway. But as she got older my "habit" changed. I would smoke one every now and then after she would go to bed. But, I am fully committed to cashing out for good. It is hard for me to "give" myself cancer knowing that there are so many people and especially little children who have cancer and die from cancer before they even know the definition of cancer.

Hubby use to smoke A $H!T TON and he put on the patch one day in 2002 and has not picked up a cig since. Damn him and his will power!

Sometimes I wish I had paid attention more when my grandparents were talking about the "good ole days!"

We just got finished watching the first season of Mad Men on NetFlix and I love it!! Man everyone during that era was completely sloshed all the time huh?!

Do you know how hard it is to not smoke when EVERY character on Mad Men smoke? Even the pregnant women. Because it was okay back then!! Ha.

I miss watching Dawson's Creek. I often wonder what Pacey and Joey are up to! Weird I know.

I think I'll stop here because I really could go on forever.

Thanks for caring,

K

Brief update and a CUTE picture!

Two weeks ago we (Tay, me, Lil Mama and Baby Parker) descended upon Re's house with all 10 tons of our baby/toddler crap!! We went to the 'Burg because some (11!) of Re's friends were throwing her a baby shower. The shower was really nice and Dawson will definitely not be naked or forget his initials! (teehee)

In case you forgot here is the baby daddy-
SARGE and you can check out his blog here. He is a funny MoFo!


"If you're happy and you know it, give me a buck!" Read all about it here.


RE- obviously before she was a Baby Mama! Read here to find out a little more about Re, if you're new to the program.

We may or may not have used this to see how fast the SARGE and HUBBY kids were going down the hill!! Baby Parker is in the car-Man, he loved this thing!! The chubby monkey little girl next to baby Paker, the sweetie-big girl up top and the cutie patootie little boy next to Tay are all Dawson's cousins!! (Well, when he is born.) They had so much fun together! Dawson is going to be a very lucky boy to be able to grow up across the street from his cousins. Their mama (Sarge's sister-in-law) also has a blog, you should go check her out here! For someone who has been through so much $h!t this past year in and a half, her continued faith in the Lord is inspiring.

Isn't this picture amazing-we got all 5 kids to look at the camera at the same time. We were all jumping up and down and clapping like a bunch of freaks. I should've gottten a pic of that!

Thanks for caring,

K