Love Hate Relationship with Payday

I absolutely love pay days so we can splurge and take the family out to eat and maybe something else fun.

I absolutely hate pay days because I have to sit down and pay bills that day.

When will the horror end?!!!?!??!

Ok, seriously? Never, not with 5 kids who keep growing and having birthdays and wanting more and more stuffs.

The oldest, S, who is now 23 as of January 17th, rarely calls or comes to see us. Scott was even in Albuquerque for S's birthday and called him and had to leave messages. He is, apparently, still too cool to spend more than a couple of minutes with his old man. We did get to see the S for a couple of minutes before Christmas but that's all.

The next kid, R, is now 14 and too smart for his own good still. Still wanting to go to Harvard and still studying and working hard for those SAT's again. And kissed I don't know how many girls by now.

Ethan, 11, is constantly growing out of his clothes. He's not necessarily fat but he is chunky. As long as he keeps growing taller at the same time that he is growing out, he'll be just on this side of fat. He's always wanting to see the newest movie coming out and had the hardest time during the first part of the school year because we grounded him from movies. He was back to his old tricks of hiding homework and lying about it so we took movies away and said he couldn't see another movie in a theater until January 1st. Poor kid remembered that and January 1st came along and he was begging to see a movie, any movie, at the theater, with real popcorn and candy and soda.
He still hasn't made it to the theater. That whole love hate thing with paydays and money.

Emma, almost 10, is constantly growing out of her clothes too, and shoes. And the girl loves shoes! More than anyone I've ever met. I really don't know where she gets it from. She wants the newest fashions, makeup, hair accessories, anything that is so totally cool mom and everyone else has it so she MUST have it. The item she wants most right now are a pair of Heelies. These shoes with one wheel shoved up inside it are so very frickin expensive for a child that outgrows their shoe size every 3-4 months. Scott is looking online and for something cheaper than $85. She is almost 10 going on 25.

Then there is Harley, almost 3. He doesn't ask for much except for movies. Gee, wonder where he gets that from. He's not growing very fast right now but it's really hard to find clothes that fit him right now. I should say, clothes that we like. I won't put him in something I don't like. I'm just picky that way.

Scott and I like to have the occasional date, which used to be once a week but is now down to maybe once a month. I have no idea what happened, other than I'm working very hard right now to pay off our bills down to the very minimum. I'd love to be able to save more money than we do. We manage a little every pay day but not much.

I now have to stay on top of my credit reports because I found someone had stolen my ss# and opened an account at a rather large department store, but didnt' charge anything which was strange (but now that account is closed with an alert on it if someone tries to use it), and owes some other big company a rather large amount of money, and all in my ss#. The name they used was slightly different than mine. I've disputed quite a few things on all three credit reporting agencies, filed a police report and even got that pesky lawyers office to quit calling me when I told them I had filed a police report and was able to give them the case number.

I feel so very violated when I think of someone doing this to me and wondering when I'll receive another call about money that someone says I owe but I really don't. Or hating to actually open my credit report updates to see if there is something there that wasn't there last time that I'm going to have to add to my fight. I get physically ill when I think of this.

I find myself wondering what that person is like and picture myself in those identity theft commercials where this big guy is sitting on a weight bench and talking about how much money he's just spent but the voice coming out belongs to some stupid valley girl.
I wonder what my identity theft voice sounds like. Or do I really want to know?

I've come to the obvious conclusion that the love hate relationship that I have with paydays will never end.

On to more interesting things, Scott is counting down the days til we go back to Disneyland. Only 174 more. He is such a big kid. That means only about 150 until the kids go to Washington and spend almost 2 months with their dad and stepmom. It's going to be a long summer! I've never been away from them for that long. Scott is looking at the fun we will have and I'm looking at the time spent away from my kids. I'll be ok, the kids are certainly looking forward to it. Fishing, camping, swimming, chasing peacocks around and who knows what else.
That also means about 140 days til R, the 14 year old walking hormone, gets here.

In about 6 weeks or so we will be back in Las Vegas for NASCAR. But this time we are joined by Scott's dad and one of his dad's friends. Should be an interesting trip. We would like to go to a show similar to the one we saw last time we were in Vegas but that isn't the kind of show you see with your father-in-law. There's a topless vampire show we want to see but not with my FIL! I know, topless vamps, how cheesy! It would be funny I'm sure but I'll not be finding out this trip. Oh Well.

Well, I'm off to bed now. It's been a long week, not sure why, nothing special happened, I'm just really tired.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

Glorious 3 day weekend

I feel rather smart this holiday because I Didn't volunteer to work today. It has been nice having another 3 day weekend.

At first I thought lots of quiet time with my kids. Maybe lots of vegging in front of movies, or even going to see a movie. Lots of snacking, no cooking, maybe just baking of cookies, and lots of relaxation.

Then reality hit. Scott had to be at work Saturday at 7:30am. I had a nail appointment at 9am, I know how vain! Right. Well, getting my nails done helps my hands look nicer, they aren't as dry and the awful hangnails are kept at bay. I'm horrible with hangnails! I'll worry at them until my fingers are bleeding. I've never chewed on my nails, I just can't leave those pesky hangers alone.

At noon I took my computer to a friend to find out why it won't connect to the internet. He said he would update everything, check for any viruses, and have it back by Wednesday or so. Emma went with me but as soon as we got home she asked if she could call a friend. Exactly 2 minutes later she was asking if she could go over to this friend's house. And she ended up spending the night there.

Sunday came and mom got sick and the two older kids went to the Outlaws to spend the night. Scott closed on Sunday and with two kids gone, my day was quiet. I did laundry, catered to mom, catered to Harley, and then stayed up til midnight surfing around the net.

Harley started coughing not long after I went to bed so I didn't sleep well at all. I kept getting up to check on him but he never woke up. Scott went in to work at 6am this morning to finish putting everything up from the stock truck.

I think I actually slept from 6:45am to 8:45am this morning.

Today I finished up the laundry, did dishes that were long over due (gross, and I can't believe I did that to my poor kitchen), cleaned the bathroom, made lunch for everyone and now I'm doing this. I would think I would be tired but I'm not.

And that is a very quick overview of my 3 day weekend. I need to go to the grocery store and the drug store and by the time I get home it will be time to make supper.

I should probably go while Harley is napping so I can be home when he wakes up.

Hope everyone has a great week!

I forgot one detail of Christmas day

Our last hamster died Christmas day. It was very sad and Emma held the poor thing wrapped up in a washcloth for about 4 hours petting him and trying to keep him warm. Emma and I held a nice funeral for him and then placed him in the trashcan. She wanted to bury him but the ground is just way too hard and I'm not about to keep a dead hamster body until Spring when we can bury him.

After we put him in the trashcan Emma went to bed and I had a nice, stiff drink. I'm starting to sound like a lush but I promise I'm not!

The New Year

A Happy Belated New Year to all!

My stepmother did send quite a large packet of pictures and cards that my dad had received from me over the years. I was very shocked at how much stuff there was. I did exactly what I thought I would do and pushed his death to the back of my mind and when I looked at all those pictures of him and the cards I'd made for him when I was little, all the tears finally came. My boss was so nice about it and let me have a couple days off, bereavement time, even though I didn't know him. I spent those 2 days sleeping and watching lots of the SciFi channel because Scott had to work both of those days. My mom was kind enough to keep Harley out of my room and let me have some totally alone time to think and grieve. Parts of me have forgiven him for leaving when I was little. I guess you could call it abandoning me but he did call me a couple of times.

Then there are other parts of me that don't want to forgive him, especially after seeing all those pictures. If he did love me as his only daughter then why didn't he try harder to contact me? I'll never know and I'll have to live with that. I'm also fully aware that I could have tried to contact him when I got older. It certainly wasn't for lack of my ex-husband pushing me to call him or even write him. I could just never bring myself to do that.

Brighter thoughts and subjects now....
Ethan turned 11 on December 13 and it was a pretty quiet day. He loved all the presents he received and loved his Cars birthday cake. I'm going to call the school tomorrow to schedule another evaluation of his IEP. I've come to the conclusion that he needs to be in B level permanently for the rest of the year. He's just not making any progress in the main stream class and needs that constant attention still. I'm still thrilled for him that he is out of D level but now that I've come back down to earth on that I need to make sure Ethan is getting the full potential out of his schooling.

Emma is signed up for basketball through our boys and girls club now. I have a feeling I'm going to regret this because soccer and basketball overlap. I'm the parent who was against 2 sports at one time. Why, so she could keep her grades up along with enjoying one sport and not being a tired little girl all the time. I see other girls on Emma's soccer team that participate in softball, basketball, and then piano lessons along with soccer and they are so tired most of the time that they don't seem like they are enjoying themselves. The first sign of that kind of tiredness and I'm pullig Emma out of basketball. She's actually happy to get back to school after the Christmas break too.

Harley will be 3 in a little over a month. It certainly doesn't feel like he should be 3 already. He's still a precocious little guy and talking up a storm and questioning everything.

Christmas was a nice quiet day. No fights with the outlaws or my ex-husband. The outlaws didn't even call that day or on Christmas Eve. My ex called to see how the kids liked their Christmas presents and then let them go.

Scott's parents came over for Christmas dinner and stayed for a while after to talk. It was a nice day.

Scott loved his gun but now he's going around pouting because he didn't get me anything. I knew he wouldn't get me anything because he kept complaining about how he was supposed to buy me something without me knowing how much he spent. I didn't know what to tell him other than to pull money out of the bank and tell me how much he pulled out. I've never asked him why he pulled money out, why would I start now? He's just going to have to get over it. I asked him the other day why he was mad that he didn't get me a gift. All he did was stick his tongue out at me and walk away.

New Year's Eve was pretty quiet this year. Scott had to work until 6:30 that day so the kids and I picked him up from work and then we went home an gorged ourselves on shrimp, sausage and cheese and crackers, and desserts. We made it to 11pm and made the kids go to bed because for one both of us worked New Years day and for 2, Scott and I finished off 2 bottles of wine in just a couple of hours and we were having trouble staying awake. We are Party Poopers!

I've decided to take a break from my business classes for a while. We had a new phone system installed at work and are about to get a new computer system in a month. I figured I would give my brain a break from homework with all the new stuff we are adding. The new phone system keeps going down and they phone company and our phone techs can't seem to figure out what is causing the problem. Our problem, besides no phones when this happens, is that it brings our computers down too. It is all linked together right now. I can hardly wait to start the conversion. It will be lots of over time but I'll gladly put up with it just so we can get rid of the crappy system we have now.

So that is about it for my boring life right now. I'm glad we are back to boring and not all the uproar of last holidays.

Every one have a great week.