Paid the deposit Saturday night.
Our email from the government came letting us know that our federal tax return has been accepted. ($3800) I’m going to
miss about $1000 of that next year when because my oldest turned 17 years old a week ago.

So things are looking very very up right now. It’ll be a couple of weeks before we can move into the new place. It’s a really
cute place. 3 bedrooms, one hideous pink bathroom. My bedroom is going to be red – which will look phenomenal  with my
black and white movie/Marilyn Monroe posters. My hideous pink bathroom will be tamed with a lime green shower curtain
and other accessories. Big dining room and okay kitchen, sun room and basement which is where laundry will stay finished.
My closet though isn’t very big and that’s terrible because i have A LOT of clothing.

Will be packing up things that we can live without this week. I hate packing. Hate it. And then it’s been SO cold!! My current
shitty house doesn’t hold heat easily apprently and it was 62 in here most of the last 6 days. When it’s anywhere between 5
and -20 outside, 62 is damn cold! Yeah, our gas bill is going to be outrageous!  The new place will at least be freakin warm!
But we have to give away our goggies! I hope to just give them away. Cassie was easy to find a home for. My BFF’s
mother-in-law is taking her. But Joe… My poor boxer. I’m finding him a home i hope. I contacted the Mid-Michigan Boxer
Rescue and I have to take him down for a physical while i’m there. But that doesn’t mean they will take him. If i can’t find
him a home, i will have to put him down.   Anyone want a goggie?

The economy has really effed a lot of people over, hasn’t it? We were certainly not immune to the cost of living going up and
the wages staying the same, that’s for sure. I can’t find a job to save my life and Hubby’s work has done it’s best to fuck over
the employees at his shop, from the comfort of whichever vacation they might be on this week. Annual raises didn’t happen,
quarterly bonuses were completely ignored, and one of the boss’s 16 year old sons has gotten a brand new truck for getting
his licence.

So yeah, with the refinance of 06′ and getting completely fucked by my bosses shortly thereafter, spending all of 2007
trying to keep up with the fact that our house payment went up over $300 and hubby not working any overtime for about
8 months and the complete incompetence of the mortgage company, we were foreclosed upon, and as much as we’ve
worked to save it for the past few months, nothing can be done to fix it. So now we’ve got to move. 

We have known since last summer that we’d have to move and really wanted to move before the summer was over, however
once we started working on rehearsals for A Christmas Story, we didn’t have time to move. Then Christmas came along and
well, here we are. Went to court a few weeks ago and they told us we had until the 26th to move but the house won’t be ready
until the end of the month, so they’ll either give us an extra week like we’ve asked, or they will have to give us an eviction notice
which will give us 30 days anyways.

The first house we found and was given to us was taken back 10 days later because he “didn’t feel comfortable.” Whatever that
means. Honestly… and he did not mind whatsoever that he was essentially leaving a family out in the cold for the winter.
I don’t care much becaue the house we’ve got now is SO much better. I’m so excited about this new phase in our lives.

Okay – i’ve updated. Will try to do more than I have.

Ahhh… 1989.

I’d gone to spend the weekend with a friend of the family and when i came home my dad was talking about his being at work and these 7 people came in… Randy Travis, Tiffany and these five boys from some band about a block… “New Kids on the Block?” I asked. “Yeah, that’s them.” I stood, dumbfounded… Ran to my bedroom and tore their poster off the wall and ran back downstairs and held it up. “THESE GUYS!?”

“Yup.”

Holy FUCK! I knew that they were playing at the Ionia Free Fair, but omg. My dad MET THEM! I’d wanted to go to that concert and i heard over and over “we can’t afford it.” So I didn’t go. But then my dad met them. It was August 1989. I was 11 years old.

I’d spent the next 3 years all about NKOTB. I had all the magazines, posters, folders, bedsheets, backpack, pins, oversized pins, shirts, pens, pencils… you name it. I remember the door posters i’d get.. Pretend they were actually IN my room. I loved them.

Fast Forward to May 16, 2008. I’m up and in front of my tv ready to watch the first NKOTB performance in 15 years. I’m 30 years old, giddy and giggling. Sitting on the edge of the couch and yes, making sure my DVR is recording so i can rewatch this concert later. I’d just sent my 3rd and youngest child (almost 9 years old) off to school. I’m freaking out over a boy band that I loved so long ago and I was thrilled that there they all were. I smiled the rest of the day.

I went onto ebay and looked up, bid on and won tickets to their concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills on October 25. My parents wouldn’t let me go when i was 11 and now i’ve got 2 kids older than I was then,  and I am still thrilled to see them. The girl that’s going with me is 20 years old. she was born the same year NKOTB’s second album was released.  Mind you, this is much to the dismay of my 12 year old daughter who was born the year after they disbanded. Gabi wants to go too!

Last week their new CD released. I LOVE IT! Yes, i bought it. And I’ve been listening to it for a week. Blasting it in my livingroom all day while the kids are at school. Its like being a kid again. I fucking love it.

Oh yeah.. Rosie was NOT right. Britney Spears won 3 Video Music Awards last night on MTV after having turned her life around and crawled her way out of the pit of dispair she had fallen into and hit bottom at LAST years VMA’s. Congrats Brit.  You look great too. (Much better than Christina Aguilera – she needs a personal trainer)

Have you ever felt that no matter how long you’ve been friends with someone that you just don’t seem like friends anymore? They have something else going on in their lives. Work. Kids. Boyfriend. Other friends. Other interests.

That’s all.

I’m around. I’ve been working on a play. Dearly Departed. I’m Delightful. That’s my characters name. It’s really fun to say “Hi, i’m Lila. I’m Delightful”  I eat through the whole show. Cheese puffs – 16 of em. One long slim jim. 5 cookies. 1 corn dog. glass of water – or whatever they put in the cup, once it was lemonade. Then bubble gum. A cherry coke. Peanut M&M’s, but i don’t eat the peanuts. Though, i’m not going to eat then this weekend. I’ll eat skittles. Then i chew more gum… and more M&M’s… then a Dilly Bar. 2 more shows and then i’m done.

Home. The kids went on Spring Break up north to grandma’s house. I guess though that Grampa was in a bad mood all week and was a jerk to everyone. Even the boy. I didn’t do anything all week. Rehearsals at night but during the day, nothing. Cleaning is pretty much it. I stayed home while Steve went and picked up the kids and as amusing as that was, i think next time i’ll go with.

Wow… that’s all i’ve done. I mean – the kids are kids. Steve is still Steve.. I am still me. Nothing else going on.. God i’m boring.

Rosie O’Donnell wrote in her blog today. One has to realize that what she wrote was actually very true. Britney will die and it’ll be the fault of the paps, who will do nothing else until they get those photos of her slumped over in her Mercedes, no one attempting to save her life, all of them trying to get the money shot of her face, distored and covered in blood to sell to the highest bidder.   

I remember the tunnel as it appeared on the news, lit by headlights, flashlights, red lights. Between the cement tall pillars was a heap of twisted metal. I saw it then, and I can see it now. Diana dead.
She will be trying to get away, but they will chase her, just as they chased her into that church yesterday. There were dozens of them, jostling their way into sanctuary, elbowing past each other, just to creep closer to her. Even her last-minute, folded-hand prayers can’t be kept sacred. There can be no silent moments in a crowd; no silence, and no secrets.
All this fresh, painful frailty costs her so much, but it lines their pockets very well. A kings ransom was paid for those tabloid-ready cheap shots of her with messy hair, tear-soaked eyes, and the half-smile of a desperate baby girl.
“I’m scared,” she told them yesterday, when they later mobbed her at court. “Move back,” she said. “I’m scared. Stop it. Stop it. I want to get back in the car. Just stop it. Let me get in the car, please.”
Sometimes it really is too much. Internal wires cross. Anxiety hits. Panic sets in the heart. Dread. Fear.
But she asked for it, she’s a public figure.
At eight years old, she bravely stood before a microphone. By 17, she had sold 25 million records. Where were the sidewalk-skinned knees, the chalk stained hands, the monkey bars, the passed notes? A Disney set is not a childhood, no matter how many bright colors they use, or how cheerful the script.
Not a girl, barely even a woman yet, they chased her. A mob of stalkers for whom no stalking laws have been written. Smother. Crush. Flash. Photo Credit. Even Dr. “Get Real” Phil got in on the action. Unreal.
83 million albums sold so far. How many pictures?
The tunnel is crowded now. There are only inches of separation between vulnerability and disaster.