No longer hating cardboard boxes...

There was a time when cardboard boxes frightened me. 

Not in an odd fear having type of way but in a way where I knew if my parents brought home cardboard boxes my life was about to be uprooted again.
By the time I was eight (my sons current age) I had moved at least four times that I am aware of.
By eighteen that number was up to twenty.
Different rooms, different schools, different friends every time. Never longer than three years sometimes as short as three months.

I've heard some people say "Kids are resilient. They become better adults by having those experiences." Which I say is bullshit. 
Most adults like me have a hard time making and keeping friends due to the social issues associated with constantly being thrown into situations as the new kid.
While I understand that some families don't have the luxury of staying put due to the type of jobs they have the parents of children in these situations need to be much more sympathetic to their kid's feelings and communication.

Since becoming a mom I have wanted more for my son than the constant upheaval of a moving lifestyle. This weekend we moved for the third time in eight years. The first was from Sacramento to Las Vegas for a fresh start after the economy drop kicked our butts in 2008. The second was because of an awful landlord foreclosing and then short selling the house out from underneath us while on a lease and this last one was for a bigger, better house with a pool.

While planning our move we discussed everything openly with our son. He got his feedback on the houses we looked at. We let him make the decision of switching schools or staying at his current one. We also let him upgrade his new bedroom with a few items he'd been wanting for a while.

We're all enjoying the new house and having our first pool. But most importantly Hayden loves it and has been raving about it every chance he gets. He enjoyed the move and will hopefully never hate cardboard boxes like I did.

Our trip to Big Bear, Ca

We needed a break from the grind. A refreshing visit to nature far from the neon lights, draining work days, and flashing electronic screens.
I planned a trip to Big Bear Lake. A short three and a half hour drive away from our bustling city, away from our jobs, our band, our television and computers.
We got in late Friday evening and didn't really get to see more than the cabin we were staying in. However bright and early Saturday morning we woke to the wonderful scent of pine trees and this view.

We brought the dogs along with us.  This being the longest road trip either had been on they were pleasantly surprised when they saw the view as well.

We took the dogs to the lake where they reveled in the beautiful waters and garnered attention from all who watched. 

After the lake time we headed to some stables to go horseback riding. Hayden had told me prior to the planning that he wanted to try a new adventure and do something he had never done before.

He was nervous at first with the horse being much larger in person than he imagined. However once on the horse and riding steady he enjoyed it. 

After our ride we drove back to the cabin and relaxed for the rest of the night.
The drive home on Sunday was also beautiful and relaxing. The kids all chilled in the back resting together.

It was a grand adventure and we all had a great time away from the grind.

Puppy Problems. The book Hayden wrote.

Our son Hayden wrote a cute little book about the problems with puppies. You can buy a copy and support his literary career by clicking the link below.

Thank you!

Puppy Problems by Hayden and Charlie Hanks |

The $400 Lesson

About 13 years ago we met this group of guys in a band that were immensely talented and right out of high school.  We quickly became friends and hung out quite a bit. They even played mine and Brian's joint bachelor/bachelorette party.
One of the guys was Shaun. He was a super talented guitar player, hilarious smart ass, and after a while was like a brother to Brian and I. He moved in with us as a roommate and we had a blast together.
He moved out for about eight months and moved back in while I was nine months pregnant with Hayden.
Right after I had the boy and was getting used to taking care of a new baby Shaun had moved his girlfriend into his room without talking to us, and they were causing HUGE messes and not cleaning up after themselves. Also, Shaun starting taking pills. His attitude and his respect for everyone completely changed with the pills; a lot of back stabbing, disrespect and lying. We tried to talk to him about everything but he didn't give a crap what we thought and conversations turned to arguments and he moved out.
Our bands still played shows together occasionally over the next few months but not without him making rude remarks and being a real dick to us. Soon thereafter we heard that his girlfriend broke up him, he was kicked out of his band and he got fired from his job.

Lets fast forward now to two weeks ago.  We hadn't seen Shaun in eight years. He had reached out last year via phone and facebook telling us he had been through some shit and wanted to come visit us in Vegas soon but he didn't follow up with it. But two weeks ago he reached out to me via facebook and said he was about to be homeless and needed some help. I immediately offered to get him a bus ticket and get him here. It took him two extra days due to him having issues like "having a seizure while getting off the bus and hurting his knee causing the driver to make him go to the hospital" and "not being able to get on the second bus because thats same bus driver had reported him to security."

So as soon as he got here we hugged and listened to his stories of all this bad shit and crap luck he had. Most of it seemed like he had some moments of bad judgement and had a few bad friends that had attributed to the issues. He also seemed really appreciative of the time he had lived with us before and had missed that over the last eight years.
We had a friend that could get him a job right away and we started the process he needed to get an id.  But for a week he sat around the house not wanting to work, not wanting to go anywhere with us or get the paperwork done to finish the process. He also didn't shower, brush his teeth and drank all the alcohol we had in our freezer.
Sunday we had our son's birthday party. When we returned Shaun was belligerent drunk. He went upstairs to his room and we heard him fall or drop something super heavy. We tried to check on him fearing he had a "seizure" which he had claimed to have often. He didn't have a seizure but had made the room a mess and couldn't even stand up.
The next day when I got home from work I tried to talk to him and asked out of respect for us trying to help him that he get off his ass, stop getting belligerent drunk, and start helping himself.
That night at like 9pm we heard a huge crash from his room. When Brian checked on him he  was drunk again, had taken a bunch of advil pm and had thrashed the room even further completely destroying a whole bookcase with stuff from our wedding on it. He also thrashed our bathroom.
Brian had reached his breaking point and told him he was done here and that we would be taking him back to the bus station in the morning.
So at 7:45am the next morning I gave him $200 and dropped him off at the bus station.

So my $400 lesson= Never helping out a former friend again. 
-$150 for the bus ticket here from Washington
-$50 for his rushed birth certificate (charged but he never completed the process so I paid for nothing)
-$200 for him to leave our house.

We figured out after he was gone that he had been drinking rubbing alcohol on top of regular alcohol. He left some pretty gnarly dirty clothes stashed in our guest room, thrashed the room, and lied to us about a lot of stuff.
He's not the first friend we tried to help that took advantage and let us down but he is the last.

Truly out in the desert

 Our definition of family has changed a lot in the almost fifteen years Brian and I have been together. 

When we first met I was close to my grandma, uncles, and aunts and young cousins. Brian spoke to his family quite often on the phone but hadn't seen them in years. When we moved in together we didn't really see our families all that often but then they all (mostly) came out for our wedding.

Once we had our son we got a little closer to our family and I tried to get us out to see Brian's at least every year for 4 years straight on top of making efforts to see my mom and stepdad as often as possible. My father and I have had a rocky relationship and sometimes we're close and sometimes we're not. He has got to spend the most time with our son but will soon be away.

Currently we are far from most of our family. My mom and stepdad live in Florida, my dad is close here in Las Vegas but is moving back to California soon, Brian's family is all in Washington and the rest are pretty distant.

Our son doesn't have the traditional sense of family. He isn't close to cousins or aunts and uncles. He doesn't get to see his grandparents as often as he should. I worry at times about this distance from family and the effect it will have on him especially as an only child. Both Brian and I wanted more for him than the distance we had.

Our family has been reformed to include our closest friends. Unlike family; friends come and go. Some stick around through the ups and downs of life, some are fair weather friends. Babysitters also come and go. Currently my 17 year old brother watches our son on show nights or nights out and he is the closest family member Hayden has. They get along great and I believe they mutually enjoy hanging out. But my brother will be gone next month living in California.
I'm a little heart broken that the bond will be broken and am starting to feel like we are truly out in the desert on our own.

Don't take your crazy family for granted no matter what your definition is.

New-ness

I've been at my new job for almost 3 weeks now. It's been pretty amazing and the honeymoon hasn't worn off yet.
I have a wonderful office with a view of Red Rock Canyon and some posh Summerlin houses in the foreground.

I got a massage my second week and I have pretty awesome company during lunch. 

Also we do fun stuff like watch the World Cup in the conference room and I got to play softball with a client on Sunday.  Overall things are great and I am very happy I made the decision to switch when I did.

The band is doing quite well too. We have a crap load of shows this Summer and we're prepping to record a new ep soon.
The balance of family, job, band has been pretty easy as of late.

#doggyproblems Upset Dog Tummy and Treatment

A month ago my wonderful husband accidentally bought a different brand of dog food for our golden retriever Barley. Usually when you switch dog food there's a chance that the dog will vomit and have diarrhea. To avoid this it's best to mix the old food with the new food to make the switch gradual.
Fast forward to the other day where yours truly had to make the switch back to the better food he was originally on. However, my wonderful husband didn't leave any of the old food for me to mix with the new food.
Poor Barley had the adverse reaction to the food switch this time. So I did some research to find a treatment for the doggy tummy problems. I found through a few different websites that you can give your dog pepto bismol. Make sure you research how much to give per the weight of your dog.
Also its best to withhold food for 12 hours after the vomiting and diarrhea. However make sure they have more than enough water to ensure they don't get dehydrated.
After the twelve hours I found that dogs should have a bland diet to ease the stomach when they have such issues and ease them back into the dog food.
A couple different recipes for the bland diet can be found here.
I made 2 cups of boil in the bag white rice mixed with some chicken baby food and Barley ate it right up.
Good thing I have a few days off before my new job starts to take care of him.