Holly’s Happenings

We have a neighbor/friend that we’ve been helping out the past few months because he lost his drivers license due to a DUI. He’s a decent guy, I honestly don’t mind him, but OMG does he drive me up a wall when he comes to our house!

For instance, he had to come here today because he needed me to fax something for him. While I don’t have a problem doing that, what I do have a problem with is his inability to have things ready “to go” when he gets here. This isn’t the first time he’s done this, it’s happened a few other times as well, and with each time it happens, it just aggravates me more and more!

This time, when he came, he didn’t even have a cover letter for the fax he needed sent, and when I asked him for it, his reply was “HAHAHA, I knew I was forgetting something, I’ll just let you type up one really quick for me”. While this really is “normally” not a major problem, he wanted me to do this within a couple of hours of an exam that included having my eyes dilated.

Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I have this done, it makes it nearly impossible for me to read anything. So while I was trying to fill in the “blanks” when filling out the cover letter for his fax, I obviously made a few mistakes. I knew that I would, but I wanted to get the information put in initially, then go back through and fix my mistakes. But NOOOOOOOOOOO, he wasn’t about to let that happen, and would make me go back and fix them right away. But he wouldn’t point them out as soon as I did them, no, he had to wait until I was at least two lines away. When I initially tried to explain to him that I knew there would be mistakes and that I planned on going back and fixing them all at the same time his response was “It will just be easier to fix them as I notice them” in a VERY snarky tone of voice.

If it weren’t for the fact that A). I won’t let him TOUCH my computer and B). I wanted him out of my home ASAP, I’d have walked away and told him to go “F” himself! I mean seriously, if someone is doing something nice for you, something that you can’t do that would cost you to have it done elsewhere, WHY do you have to be rude and snarky about it? And why aren’t you completely prepared to have it done when you get to their house? UGH, I know this is VERY minor and petty, but this guy REALLY gets on my nerves! I wish like heck that I could tell him to go elsewhere to have stuff like this done, but he’s a good friend of my hushands, so I feel I need to be nice to him! But UGH, I really wish I didn’t feel that way…LOL!

I’m probably one of the least judgmental people you’ll ever come across! I know that people make bad choices and mistakes and that sometimes the things they do can get them into trouble. What’s most important is that when someone makes a choice or mistake that gets them into trouble is that they learn from it, change their lives and do their best to not repeat their mistakes!

We recently had a very good friend who made a bad choice and got behind the wheel of his vehicle after having too much to drink. Fortunately, no one was hurt when he made this choice! He was stopped by the police and charged with a DUI. The night that he was stopped and arrested, his vehicle was impounded and he was told that he’d have to wait until after his first court appearance to ask the judge if he could remove his personal items from his vehicle, which included his work tools. Without these tools, he was totally unable to work, thus causing him loss of income.

His first court appearance was yesterday morning, and I was the person that was going to drive him there. As expected, he was worried about what was going to happen. The judge he was going before has a reputation of being hard ball. But our friend knew the decision he made was a bad one, and is making the steps on his own to make the changes in his life so that he doesn’t repeat this mistake.

Thankfully, the judge seemed to be in an abnormally decent mood yesterday and when my friend was called to go before him he explained about the tools and other property in his vehicle that were necessary for him to earn a living. While my friend was not allowed to get his vehicle out of impound, he was allowed to go to the impound lot and remove ALL of his personal property from his vehicle. Although that was a wonderful thing, it turned out not so wonderful.

It was immediately obvious that his vehicle had been gone through. Although he’s not the neatest person in the world, he’s very impeccable when it comes to his work tools being in order. As soon as we looked into his windows, it was obvious that his tools had been dumped and gone through. After opening the door and trying to get some sort of order to the mess, it was obvious that several of his most important tools were now missing.

Yes, he was 100% in the wrong for drinking and driving, he knows that. Yes, the law had the legal right to have his vehicle impounded for doing this! But how in the heck is it acceptable for these companies that impound peoples vehicles to STEAL peoples personal property when they take control of these vehicles? It’s a commonly known fact in this area that this happens ALL the time! It’s bad enough that peoples lives are put into turmoil because of the very bad decisions they make that cause them legal repercussions, but something needs to be done about the towing companies that think it’s their “right” to STEAL peoples personal property when impounding someones vehicles! THAT’S JUST WRONG!

You know, there are MANY things in life I can deal with that most people can’t! I can deal with extreme stress, I can deal with 2 kids that refuse to listen or get along, I can even deal with being called ALL of the derogatory names that many women are called! But one thing I CANNOT and WILL NOT deal with is being lied to, by ANYONE! I don’t care if you’re a person I see and deal with on a daily basis, or a simple online acquaintance that I hardly ever deal with, if you lie to me and I find out, you are CRAP in my book!

Nearly 4 months ago I made a “comment” online to someone that didn’t sit very well with them. It wasn’t necessarily that it pissed them off, it was just very obvious that it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Prior to this we had had an “ammicable” online friendship. We really didn’t seek each other out, but we also didn’t avoid each other either, well, I didn’t avoid this person, but I don’t know how they felt about me 100% for certain, but I never got the feeling that they avoided me.

Anyway, just prior to making the comment that I talked about above, I had actually entered a contest this person was having for a small and inexpensive, but kind of cool item that I knew I’d actually use. Amazingly, after the “offensive” comment was made, the winner of said contest was drawn, and it turned out to be me! I was excited but also shocked at the same time, after everything that had happened, I never expected to win, NEVER! So I contacted them with my personal info and was told my prize would be sent out ASAP. Within a few weeks, I hadn’t received my prize, so I sent them a polite note asking if it had been sent out yet and the comment back was something to the effect of “OMG, I can’t believe I forgot to mail that out, I’ll get it out in tomorrows mail.

We’re now just a few days away from 4 months since I found out I won said contest, and to date, I still have not received my “prize”. Yet I see CONTINUOUSLY where this person is advertising contest after contest after contest. Yes, my prize was a VERY inexpensive item and NO, my life will not end if I don’t ever receive it. But my point is that you don’t tell someone they’ve won something and turn around and PURPOSELY never send it to them! How do I know it’s not being sent on purpose? Because this person is now completely avoiding me! All I have to say is LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!!!! Karma baby, what comes around goes around, it’s going to come back and bite you in the A$$ B!T

Being a person who has spent the better part of my life on the lower end of the income scale, I know first hand how much some of the programs that are in place to help low income families come in handy. I’m not one to use these programs unless I have no other choice, mostly because I’m pretty crafty at finding ways to take care of what needs to be taken care of.

But a story I just read on a local new stations website makes my blood BOIL! The title is State of Ohio slashes funds for elderly and the story goes on to read about how the colder than anticipated winter took up more energy funding help than anticipated so rather than the state cutting fat from it’s own budgets so that those who need the help this summer can get it they’re going to limit the help the the elderly and medically needy this summer to just $100 per household and where they had given away air conditioners in the past, this year they are not going to offer that.

Yes, I know, people need to plan better financially, spend their money wisely, budget, bank, invest, etc. But you know what? Sometimes doing stuff like that simply isn’t an option. You can only cut so much and before you know it, there’s nothing left to cut except for the necessities like food, utilities, rent and prescriptions. Thousands of people have no other choice but to use programs like this to try and keep their homes cool and their electric service on. And how many elderly and medically needy households have tried their hardest to make ends meet in our current economy, waiting for programs like this one, only to find out that our Governor and other state employees are going to live high on the hog this summer in their cool air conditioned homes and offices while the people that need these kinds of programs in order to stay alive are once again pushed to the side.

This is so very wrong and will honestly sentence innocent lives to death. When the temperature climbs higher and higher, like today, and these people have no choice but to stay in homes that aren’t properly cooled or have no electric, they will face a choice of life or death. Yet our state government doesn’t care. Governor Strickland, I plead to you to cut the fat elsewhere in the budget and find the funding so that those in this state that need this help the most are able to get it! I also plead with you to make sure that those who should not be entitled to this help do not get it. Anyone that knows anything about programs like this knows for certain the amount of people who are granted the help is much higher than those who truly need it and deserve it!

During my recent trip, I decided that I was going to see just exactly how I felt, and just exactly how things went at home while I wasn’t here. You see, our home seems to be nothing but stress and arguments. Now, I do understand that with teens comes the mouthiness and argumentativeness or trying to find their way. I also understand that after spending nearly 17 years with your spouse that things do change. But what I don’t understand is why it’s so difficult for four people to get along.

Here’s a very quick synopsis of how my trip went. Even after being sleep deprived and PMSing, I only had one time where I got even the tiniest bit upset, ONE TIME! Here’s a quick synopsis of how things went here at home while I was gone. EVERY day was filled with some sort of argument or disagreement, some of which caused extreme anger issues in the kids and my husband. Yet amazingly, even though I wasn’t even home, other family members that don’t live in my house seem to think the reason for all of the problems while I was gone is still completely my fault. It’s my fault that the kids pushed their father to the point of being so angry that he slammed a door hard enough to pull the door jam 2-3 inches away from the wall. It’s my fault that my children fought the way that they did and didn’t take care of the responsibilities they were supposed to, and it’s my fault that the kids neglected to care for the dogs the way they were asked to.

OK, EXCUSE ME, HOW is this my fault when I was thousands of miles away and not a presence in this home? Let’s see, at one point while I was driving through the mountains I received a very angry phone call from my daughter because she couldn’t find something that I had given her with the instructions to put it in her suitcase for grandma’s on the day that I left. After a few calls with her as well as a few calls with my husband, it was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to help, and since I was driving I told them that I did not need the distraction and when I ended the call I would be turning my cell phone off, which I did. Approximately 2 hours later I turned the phone back on only to be greeted with umpteen voice mail messages from my lovely 12 year old daughter who called me everything EXCEPT mom. Those, of course, were followed by a message in which she was crying and apologized because, amazingly, the item was right in her suitcase, even though she SWORE she had completely went through it. So what did I do you ask? Did I get angry? NOPE, I called her and let her know that I loved her very much and told her not to worry about it because I knew she didn’t mean it and told her to have a good time at grandma’s house.

Here’s another example of something that happened, or actually didn’t happen, while I was away. I busted my ass making sure this house was clean and laundry was done, I made sure my desk was completely cleaned and wiped off since my husband was going to be using my computer while I was gone. I made sure everyone knew where all of the important things they’d need were at and when I walked out the door this house was cleaner than it had been in a avery long time, with only maybe 2 loads of laundry that needed to be washed (due to my son deciding a few hours before I was leaving to FINALLY clean his room and bring out his dirty clothes). Yet, when I got home, not only was the house a FILTHY mess, there was also a TON of laundry piled up, a load of clothes in the washer that had obviously been left there all week (the smell about made me puke) and the load of clothes that was in the dryer when I left had been taken in to my room had several heavy objects piled on top of it thus making EVERYTHING in the basket wrinkled to the point that they all have to either be ironed or rewashed. (I’m rewashing them because I REFUSE to iron t-shirts).

The arguing was almost non stop last week, EVERY time I called home I would get the latest low down about who had done what and what daddy’s reaction was. There are a few things around the house now that are broken, a few others that are simply gone and the tension in this house when I came home was so thick, you can could it with a knife. Yet, I’M the problem?

Yes, I am a stay at home/work at home mom, which means I do feel that I’m responsible for the bulk of the housework and stuff that has to do with the kids. But when I’m not home why is it left for me to do when I get back home? ESPECIALLY when I busted my ass before I left to make sure it was DONE?

And why am I the reason “this family is the way it is” yet when I’m gone I’m completely stress free with almost no anger issues, yet everyone here at home continued on the way they do when I’m not home? Do I have anger issues? YUP! But only when I am pushed to the point of no return, when I am so completely stressed out that I feel my only venue for dealing with the stress is to get angry. And when I get so fed up because although there are four people in this house that are TOTALLY able to clean up after themselves, yet because I don’t have a “job” they all feel that I’m the one that should do it.

So my trip was definitely an eye opening experience. In just a few weeks my kids are going away for a month and it will just be the hubby and I at home with the dogs. At first I had the feeling that he and I would discover how much we loved each other again, but now, I have this gut wrenching feeling that we’re going to discover otherwise. I admit to what I do wrong, I’ve never denied the fact that I get angry and upset, EVER. But when I’m not around and things continue just as they did when I was here, that tells me the problem isn’t just me. Yet I’m the one that everyone blames, and what do they tell me? Get back on your meds. I’m sorry, a pill is NOT going to solve the problems with this family! And I’m not sure how much longer I can go on letting them put the blame completely on me before I simply walk out the door!

I’m so flippin pissed right now, it’s not even funny! I try my best to have mornings around here go as well as possible, I don’t like the thought of my kids walking out the door to go to school being upset, I don’t think it’s a good way to start the day. I’ve known for a VERY long time that neither of my kids are morning people, and that’s fine. We’ve made adjustments and make sure that we set their alarms earlier than what is actually necessary, that way they have a little more time to get ready for school.

This morning my daughter decided to wait until about 10 minutes before we have to walk out the door for the 5 minute drive to where she gets on the bus to START getting ready. Now mind you, I’ve been in and out of her room telling her to get up and get moving for almost an hour now. Just a couple of minutes ago she lays into me about the fact that I didn’t come in and make sure she was up and moving at the time that her alarm went off, and that’s why she’s running so late this morning getting ready. EXCUSE ME? I’ve been in and out of your room since 6:10 telling you to get up and get moving, yet you laid there NOT getting ready until 6:42, and now all of a sudden it’s MY fault? I DON’T THINK SO AND YOU ARE GROUNDED!

So now, rather than a 5 minute drive to the bus stop, I have a 25 minute drive to her school because we won’t make the bus in time. You can bet your butt that her alarm is going to be set 30 minutes earlier and I’ll come in her room with spray bottles and air horns if she’s not up and getting ready within FIVE minutes of that time! I’m SOOOOOOOOO done with this bullshit!

Those must be two of the deepest words in the human language, at least they are to me. I’ve sat here this morning pondering them and wondering just what the meaning and purpose of my life is and asking myself if there has to be more. But, if there is more, can I honestly handle it?

I’m angry lately, VERY angry! To the point that I find myself withdrawing further and further from people and society! I hate going anywhere anymore, I don’t like being around people and I honestly am not liking myself very much either. I know that this isn’t good at all, but I just can’t help it, it’s something that is inside of me that has decided to rear it’s ugly head! It’s like one of those deep, dark, hidden secrets that you hope never comes out, only to those that know me, what I’m going through right now isn’t a secret, it’s always been a part of me.
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OMG, is this Monday?  Because it sure feels like it!  For some reason my hubby decided that 4:45 would be a good time to wake me up this morning.  Totally not sure why, but I’m beyond that!  For some reason or another we both woke up this morning thinking that it was Friday, which it obviously isn’t.  That got me to thinking that I didn’t have class, because I don’t have a class on Friday mornings.  BUT, today is Thursday and by the time we both realized it was Thursday my morning class had already started.

I had written myself a post it note and stuck it to the computer that the kids had a doctors appointment this morning, so I decided to stay home and let hubby take the kids to their appointment then to school, since he had more gas in his vehicle.  Sometime around 9:45 AM the hubby called me TOTALLY freaking out!!!  His boss had called him to let him know that she had received a letter from the Lucas County Child Support Enforcement Agency garnishing almost $300 a week from his pay for past due child support.  Now, if he actually owed the child support, that would be fine.  But he doesn’t.  Lucas County hijacked his child support case with neither his permission nor his daughters mother’s permission many years ago.  When he and his daughters mother questioned why this was done in the original county, they were told that Lucas County had led them to believe that hubby and his daughters mother had requested it.  To make a long story short, after about a year of “fighting” the case was transferred back up to the original county it started in.  This began a series of horrific nightmares!

Although he was paying weekly in the original county, Lucas County was still charging him child support down here, even though they no longer had the case, meaning he was being charged double.  The original county faxed documentation to Lucas County several times, but Lucas County claims they never received documentation.  Now, in December of 2005 hubby’s child support case was closed because it was PAID IN FULL!  But for the tax years of 2004, 2005 and 2006 Lucas County and the State of Ohio “garnished” our State Income Tax Refunds.  When my husband contacted Lucas County asking why they were doing this when the case was closed and paid in full, they once again stated that he owed them HUGE amounts of money for non payment of child support for several years.  Once again we went through the process of providing the documentation showing them that the case did not belong to them and that it was paid in full and closed.  We honestly thought from the last correspondence with them that things were settled.  That’s what we get for thinking though.

Thankfully my husbands boss had the feeling that something just wasn’t right when she received the order to take child support out of his pay.  She had heard him talk about his daughter (who by the way is now 23 years old), and she wondered why he would still be paying child support on her.  If she hadn’t have called him to ask about it, he’d have never known until his next pay check.  He was able to get ahold of the original county that the child support case was in and they were able to get ahold of Lucas County and between the two counties and my husband, everything “seems” to be straightened out.  Hubby did get a phone call from his boss saying that she had received a fax telling her NOT to take the payment out of his pay and that a hard copy of the halt order would be mailed.  He also received confirmation from Lucas County that the case is closed and that this supposed order for payment was sent out “accidentally”.  But tell me, how many months or even YEARS would we have had to have waited to get that money back from Lucas County if his boss had sent the payment to them?  For God’s sake, it’s taken over 3 years to finally get them to acknowledge that he owes them NOTHING!  Friggin bastards put a person through hell because they’re too stupid to see that a case is closed?

Now, please don’t get me wrong, I do know that non custodial parents have a financial responsibility to support their children.  My husband never once fought that, even when his daughter lived with us but child support was being taken out of his paychecks and being sent to her mother for almost 6 months.  But when a child support agency is ILLEGALLY trying to take money that they are not entitled to, that’s when I get a bit upset!  OK, shutting up now, I think I just need to go back to bed and sleep this day away!  Thanks for listening to me rant!

It’s all over the that Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant, so I’m sure that’s not new news to you.  But what may be news to you is that her mother, Lynne Spears, had a book deal to write a parenting book called “Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World”, but that book has now been delayed indefinitely.  I for one think that this woman had no business writing a book about parenting, even if it was simply a book about how bad of a parent she is.  But that’s the benefit of being famous, you can write ridiculous things and people will buy them up because you wrote them.

It’s sad about Jamie!  I’m sure millions of pre-teen girls looked up to hear as a role model.  My own daughter is 12 and regularly watched Zoey 101.  Fortunately she now plans on not watching the show again!  At 12, she realizes how badly this young girls choices will affect her life.  But what is amazing is how openly accepting the general public will be of her pregnancy, simply because it is a more accepted thing in today’s society.  People make bad choices in their lives, and young people are even more prone to doing so than most adults are.  But lets hope that the young girls that looked up to Jamie Lynn Spears realize how much her bad choice is going to affect the rest of her life.  Then again, it may not affect it the way it does normal girls because she has money, and many teenage girls that get pregnant don’t have that luxury.  They instead end up leading difficult lives because they can’t finish their education and they find out that as soon as they tell the father that they are expecting, he’s usually history!

Yes, you heard that right!  In case you didn’t realize it, you only have six days left to buy my Christmas gift.  And if you live a LONG way away, you have even less time than that to either hand deliver it or ship it to me, so you’d better get busy!!  I’m waiting!  LOL!  I’m kidding around!  At this point in time the ONLY thing I want for Christmas is for this God awful cold to be GONE!  I’ve been so miserable these past couple of days.  My nose is running, my eyes are watering, I’m sneezing and coughing non stop.  It’s just a good thing for you that you can get my cooties through a computer monitor, isn’t it?  LOL!

It’s been a crazy few days, that’s for sure!  We had no snow on the ground by the time it was time for me to leave for the family get together this past Saturday, so my daughter and I headed out and went.  Honestly, I’m very happy I went!  My mother and step fathers reaction when they pulled up and all of their children, grand children and great grand children were standing outside to yell “HAPPY BIRTHDAY”, was priceless!  Mom instantly broke into tears, she had no clue that we had been planning this!  My step father was basically speechless, which says quite a bit…LOL!  They were so excited to see everyone and the hugs and kisses seemed never ending…LOL!  But I guess that’s to be expected when there are more than 30 family members in one place!

I should have left my sisters house about an hour earlier than I did, because by the time I did leave, the roads were a MESS!  It normally takes me about 45 minutes to get from my driveway to my sisters house.  The drive home Saturday night took an hour and a half.  It wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that my daughter was tripping out for most of the drive.  I’m the type of person that puts 100% of my energy and attention into driving if there are bad road conditions.  My daughter was a chatter box the whole drive home.  I know it was because of how bad the roads were and the fact that she was so nervous.  I’d try to talk to her as I could, but finally had to tell her that she really needed to be quiet so that I could focus on my driving.  But we made it home safe and sound, with only 3 times that I got scared…LOL!

From the time the snow storm started Saturday night to the time it finally stopped on Sunday, we ended up getting right around 8 inches of snow.  It was really pretty, and we had a few times during the day on Sunday that we had near white out conditions because it was snowing so hard!  It turned out to be a good thing that I didn’t have anywhere to go, for more reasons than one.  Besides the snow, I also ended up having my cold kick in early Sunday evening.  And by dinner time Sunday night, my daughters school had already delayed school for the next day.  By the next morning her school had canceled, but as of 6:00 Monday morning, my son’s school still had not even delayed, even though every other school in the area had at least delayed, if not canceled, which meant he would have school.  That was so ridiculous!  The roads were still in horrible shape and my county was still under a level 2 snow emergency.  I made an “executive” decision, and I kept him home Monday.  It was so stupid that they didn’t at least delay.  The sidewalks were not cleared so kids that had to walk to bus stops or to schools ended up walking in the streets, it was freezing cold and the snow was blowing, they put the kids’ safety in jeopardy!  I know many people think that because my son rides a bus rather than walking, my decision to keep him home was stupid, but it was my call to make and I still feel I made the right decision!

Anyway, school was on time for my son today, my daughters school delayed 2 hours, and after I got her to the school bus I crashed!  My cold was horrible and I just needed sleep!  I was able to get a little rest today, on and off.  My best friend suggested that I try drinking hot green tea to help with my congestion.  I’ve drank 4 cups and I’m not as congested, but I also took a dose of cold meds that I found in the cupboard…LOL!  I’m feeling OK tonight, just worn out!  It will definitely be an early to bed night!

I’ve had a hectic day, running my son to school because he missed the bus, then running out to my daughters school to get her because she fell and hurt her knee. From there I ran to her doctors office, then an x-ray lab to have x-rays done on her knee. The machine at that lab was broken, so I had to go ALLLLLLLLL the way across town to the other one that accepts her insurance. After that she and I grabbed a quick lunch and came home to wait for her doctor to call with the x-ray results.

Doing all that running meant that I actually drove the road that my house is on a total of 6 times between 7:00 this morning and 1:30 this afternoon. On the final trip I noticed that someone had very recently decided to use one of the ditches as their personal trash can. There was a HUGE pile of trash consisting of several bags and a piece of furniture that was either a large chair or a love seat that were piled near a truck bed liner that has been laying in the ditch since shortly after we moved in here. I guess I need to make a call to the township offices and find out if they have any intention of cleaning the mess up! Fortunately it’s not in the ditch in front of my house, but if it’s still there in the spring, I might have to consider cleaning it up myself.

One thing that the people in my life know about me is the fact that I don’t give up easily! Even when I do give up, it’s not until I have no other choice. As you may know, some of the posts that I do on my blogs are sponsored or paid posts. One of the main ways that the companies who offer sponsored/paid posts determine eligibility to do so is called pagerank. If you do a quick internet search on any search engine BESIDES Gaggle (a.k.a. Google), you’ll be able to find all the information you need to explain what page rank is. Exactly how Gaggle has determined pagerank, however, has been a well kept secret. But many websites and blogs have gone to great effort to obtain a decent page rank.
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First, an update as to how our week without my hubby is going. As I said yesterday, I was up shortly after 3:00 A.M. The kids had a doctors appointment at 8:15, so they didn’t go to school in the morning. Brat gurl was having a rough morning, she cried on and off for quite a while after daddy left. Brat boy simply couldn’t wake up. He slept in the car all the way to the doctors appointment, slept in his chair in the waiting room and dozed on and off while we were in with the doctor. The reality was that I knew if I took him to school after the appointment, he would get into trouble for falling asleep in school, so I made the decision to bring him back home with the warning that he was to go straight to bed and get some sleep.
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I’m so mad right now I can’t even see straight!  Our landlord is looking into every angle he can right now to try and get us out of this house.  I’m not sure if he’s doing it because he knows he MAJORLY took advantage of us and is scared of being taken to court by us or if it’s because he has someone else that wants to live here.  Either way, right now, we are not in a position to be able to find something and move right now, so my thought is that we just need to watch our P’s and Q’s until we are in the position to move.

Too bad my loving husband doesn’t think the same way.  It seems like every time I turn around he’s bringing something home that a). we don’t need, or b). I simply don’t want.  His latest and greatest “find”, a friggin truck engine.  Granted, it will fit in the Explorer, “IF” we needed it, but we DON’T!  The engine in the Explorer is perfectly fine with absolutely nothing going wrong with it.  So now we have this friggin 500 pound engine leaking oil and godonlyknowswhat all over the back patio.

See, one of my neighbors had an employee stop by his barn today with this motor and a few other things that were going to go on the neighbors junk pile, which he hauls in for scrap when it gets big enough.  So my loving husbands thought was “Hey, if he’s going to THROW it away, I’ll take it, if I can’t use it, I’ll surely be able to find someone that can”.  OK, if this dude was throwing it away, I’m sure it was for a REASON!  People don’t just throw motors away, if they’re any good or worth anything they SELL them, NOT throw them on a junk pile.  OMG, I could just SCREAM right now, I’m that mad!  What a complete freakin IDIOT!

I expressed my complete and utter disgust at how the Bengals played last week on my other blog.  I finally had to give up and not watch most of the 4th quarter because of how mad they were making me…LOL!  I was hoping that they’d do better this week, especially considering that we’re playing the Browns (no offense to any Browns fans that read here), but they’re proving that they’re still bumbling idiots.  Yes, I knew the history of the Bengals when I chose them as “my” team, but every fan hopes that their team can improve a little each year.  They had an awesome year 2 seasons ago, but came back last year and just couldn’t pull it off.  So I hoped that this year would be a little better, but it sure isn’t looking like it’s going to be.  They make sloppy mistakes that cost them BIG TIME!  They had 2 turn overs in the first half of todays game that ended up giving the Browns points.  With with the 3rd quarter closing in on being half way over, we’re down 33-24.  I don’t begrudge the Browns, they’re playing one heck of a game today and showing themselves to be a team that has their stuff together.  I just wish the Bengals were capable of doing the same thing!

Current Mood: Sickly & Angry

And no, I’m NOT talking about my hubby and kids, I’m talking mostly about my mom, but also my step father.  As you may or may not know there is a LONG standing problem between my husband and my step father that has gone on now for 6 years.  My step father will not allow my husband on “his property”, period end of conversation.  I tolerate it for my mothers sake, she’s the one that has to live with the bitter bastard, not me.   But I’m not going to be able to deal with it much longer, frankly I’m fed up with the childishness of the entire thing!

Tomorrow is my moms annual Labor Day picnic, a.k.a. “family reunion”, and every other member of my extended family will be there.  Mom is making this HUGE deal about the fact that she wants to take a picture of every family this year to put up on her picture wall.  And I’m sorry, but my husband is more family than my mom has EVER been to me, so I’m not going to participate in this photo session.  She is more than welcome to take a picture of my kids, but I refuse to be in it!  Yes, maybe I am being as childish as they are by refusing to do this, but considering that I’ve spent the last 5 days with green goo coming from nearly every orifice of my body, I really don’t give a shit right now!

I just got off the phone with my dear mom telling her how sick I’ve been and how much homework I still have left to do to get caught up before going back to school Tuesday and she had the nerve to ask me if I’d mind making pasta salad for tomorrow, even after me telling her that I didn’t have the stuff in the house to make it meaning I’d have to make a trip into town to go to the store.

I don’t know, I just want to tell them all what they can kiss, but then I know that I need to be thankful for my mom and the things that she has done for me.  I just get so irritated at feeling left out when it comes to family stuff.  I offered to come up to the house and help her with things this weekend if she needed it and she said “No, I’ll be fine”, but when I was just on the phone with her she said that 2 of my step brothers wives were there helping her get things ready.  She and my sister come down to my area quite often to go shopping and stuff and they never call me and let me know they’re going to be down this way and would I like to join them?  It all just burns me up and I’m just really sick of it.  Thanks for listening, guess I’d better get my ass into town and get the stuff to make friggin pasta salad.

My eldest child starts High School this year. Now, it’s not the starting of High School that burns me up, it’s his original bus assignment. What bothers me about it is two fold. First, as you may or may not know, we live in the country. There are no sidewalks out here and the road in front of my home has a speed limit of 55 MPH. We’re very lucky if people slow down to 55 out here!

Now, that’s where my first “problem” is. Rather than the bus stop in front of my home to pick my child up, my child has to walk 1/10 of a mile down this road and turn the corner and walk another 2/10 of a mile. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I know that 3/10 of a mile isn’t that far and that’s not what this part of the complaint is really about. The complaint is that there is absolutely no visibility from where their scheduled bus stop is to my home. No matter where you stand on my property you cannot see the bus stop from here, thus complaint #1.

Complaint #2 stands with the fact that the home directly next door to where this scheduled bus stop is is the home of the only registered sex offender in a 1 mile radius of my home. Thus the reason why it bothers me that there is no way I can visibly see the bus stop from my home. Below you will see a map as well as the registry of this sex offender:

I was polite and blurred out the name, address and registry number of said offender, as well as the names of the roads on the map.  But tell me, wouldn’t you be a bit upset about this?  Fortunately, after some arguing, the school did change my childs bus stop to something a little closer, but they were VERY reluctant to do so at first, claiming that a special needs child gets on the bus at the address originally set for my childs pick up and that if it was “good enough” for a special needs child it should be “good enough” for mine.  Our argument was that the special needs child LIVES there so they have no choice but to have to live next to a sex offender, but we don’t, and we don’t want our child(ren) any where near that address.  The “funny” thing was that we actually had to physically go to the school to have this change made because they wouldn’t do it over the phone because what if we were the actual sex offenders trying to get children to get on/off the bus at our home…..SPARE ME!  Thankfully my husband didn’t have to work today!  So that’s my rant, thanks for listening!

I tell you, there isn’t anything too much worse than having internet problems as soon as you wake up.  BUT, I’m about to tell you what can actually be worse.  How about having internet problems, waiting 20+ minutes on hold for tech support, getting the problem fixed, then your internet going down again as soon as you hang up the phone?  And how about having that happen not once but TWICE!

To say the least, I’m a bit upset right now.  Not steaming mad, but just really frustrated!  It’s obvious there are problems in the lines out here and Embarq’s refusal to do anything about it makes it that much worse.  Maybe it’s time for me to contact PUCO!

After more than a weeks worth of speculation and run around, my husbands department at work was called into a meeting this morning and they were all let go effective immediately with 2 weeks severance pay.  At least now there’s no more speculation.

As you may or may have not read on Thursday morning, I decided that I was going to try and document the life of a paper coffee cup. It was going to be fun and I had many neat ideas, but as with many good ideas it wasn’t meant to happen.

I left for school orientation Thursday morning at 9:15, and got home shortly after noon. When I walked in the door I was greeted with a HUGE mess! Amidst the mess I found my precious coffee cup, chewed and torn up. So, before I was even able to take it on one adventure or even take a photo of it, it’s “life” ended.

I will try again, and next time I’ll do more to protect my cup!