Where the hell did the year go?

My mom needs to have a bunch of external cysts removed. they just up and started growing out of nowhere. They are huge and very noticeable and she says they are also very painful. She measures the pain as a vouchsafe against the dreaded "C" word.

My heart aches and I am tired and I am worried about too many people, none of them being myself.

I need a vacation from life.

Currently making a couple dozen butter tarts. I hope 2 dozen is ok - I figure there will be lots at the bake sale and I'm too tired to put myself out any further - it's been a very long, very stressful few weeks and I can't really put forth any more effort than I already have. Last week was report card week and the parent-teacher meetings left me drained and crying. It's too long to get into here and frankly not something I feel the need to publicly air (shocking, I know). If you are curious then you'll know how to get a hold of me to find out what is going on.

Tomorrow night is a council meeting because yet again they had to reschedule. If it keeps going on Monday nights I'm going to have to quit because it conflicts with my schedule BIG TIME. Sigh.

Ok I need to go do more things. Because I have a zillion on my plate and hopefully want to pare it down to a million by the end of the night.

I don't know what to do with K anymore. Third note home since November 5th with regards to his being rough and picking on, of all people, his best friend. All three incidents involved his friend, all three incidents he "said he was sorry" and had to go to the principal. I have no fucking idea what to do with him as our typical punishments don't seem to be getting through.

What really makes me irate is that just this morning, he and I had a long talk about his behavior and he PROMISED he would behave. Promised me like there was no tomorrow. So imagine my surprise when I find at the bottom of his school bag (which was soaking wet for the third time in a row because yet again, he didn't put his water bottle in his lunch bag and also left the damn bottle open) another note from his teacher explaining that, yet again, he has done something not very nice to his friend. This time around he threw snow down his friend's coat and hat. Last time he had pushed his friend into a block of ice. The time before, oh god I can't even remember.

I was so mad I was crying. I'm at my wit's end and have no idea how to get it through to him, that if he continues to behave this way, a few not so nice things will happen. First he will lose every last one of his friends. Nobody likes a bully. Second, he'll probably get suspended or expelled. Thirdly... I don't even want to think about it. The path he is walking is not a good one. And it just kills me because he is such a good boy, deep down, and has such a good heart, and I don't know where all of this aggression is coming from. He says he just can't control himself sometimes and this is what he does to let out whatever is in him. I say he needs to learn and real damn quick son because: my wit's end? Yeah. I'm there.

So I'm at a point where, do I do the thing I really don't want to do, and not give him the main thing he really wants for Christmas, to teach him something? Or do I try and figure out something else? My dad would say just tan his hide until he can't sit for a week, and while in a way I'm tempted, it would just be sending the kid the worst kind of mixed message.

I don't know. And I'm so upset, and I'm embarrassed because I really like the family of his friend, and there are only so many phone calls I can make to apologise before even I don't want to hear it anymore. What do I do? I don't know. I don't know. The only thing I can do right now is cry. I'm so frustrated.

Ugh. SNOW! Freaking. Snow.


Sigh.

I can't seriously be the only one that hates this weather.

In other news... my friends are going through the same hoops that S & I had to go through last year to get a Wii. Hopes up, hopes sunk. Hopes up, hopes sunk. Lather, rinse, repeat. My sister-in-law is doing what she can to help, and I assured them that we didn't end up getting one until Christmas was practically in our laps, but it got done. Still, I know how it feels to be in the uncomfortable position of simply not knowing if it will happen or not.

Speaking of sister-in-laws, I am knitting her a green version of the Jayne hat, taking a break from the sweater I was knitting because while it's beautiful, the lady who wrote the pattern was off by a few things and I had to do a lot of patch-ups where she missed stitch instructions etc. I figure it out but I need a breather. All that's left is the sleeves, and a hat is a pretty quick knit nowadays. I couldn't have said that a year ago - it took me a month to make my first hat - but now I can whip those up in a heartbeat.

Ok off to shovel the rest of my driveway and uh, go window shopping I guess?

Ciao.