No Free Wi-Fi

I just had some chick get mad because I wouldn't give her the password to access the shop Wi-Fi.

What the hell?

Did you think this was McDonalds? Are you really going to get pissed for not being online for 20 damn minutes while you are getting an estimate?

Entitled bitch.

I can tell she is going to be a real peach to deal with when we fix her truck.

Forever House?

My friend texted me this weekend about a house in her neighborhood that was up for sale that we might like.

OMG. We do like it. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths on an acre. For $59,000.

Hubbs has done work on this house so he says it is a STEAL for $59k.

It is in a 100 year flood plain but I have an idea that would work to prevent water damage. If we were to have a brick wall (maybe 4-5 feet tall) built all the way around with a couple of gates, that would keep the water out as long as we sandbagged the gate openings.

And even with property taxes, PMI and the required flood insurance it is very much within our price range. Even on a 15 year loan instead of the standard 30.

The only problem is that they have accepted an offer on it and have a back up offer already. But it is for many thousands less than what is being asked. I did some google-ing and found out that they don't necessarily have to let the people with the accepted offer buy it if someone else comes along and offers more.

I talked to Hubbs and he told me to call and offer full asking price. I am kinda scared to have a mortgage. We paid cash for the place we are living in now so I have never had to deal with it.

Keep your fingers crossed it works out the way we want it to!

Whoohoo. I am now a mobile blogger!

Go America

Wow, so our troops finally got Osama.

I am feeling relief mixed with dread. But I am going to give myself at least 1 day to be somewhat happy about it before I let the pessimist in me think about any possible retaliation.

Team America, Fuck yeah!

Wha?

Today is Friday???

I woke up this morning thinking it was Thursday.

Stressing!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why? My mother-in-law is driving down from Colorado tomorrow for the weekend.

Shit. I have so much cleaning to do tonight.

Ouch

I filled up the Charger with gas last night.

Ouch.

I started the gas pump and went inside to get the boys some Gatorade. When I came out, the pump was still going and was up to $68. It took $73 to fill up the tank. AND I will probably have to fill up again in 2 weeks.

Ugh. I remember when I started driving and could fill up my VW bug for under $15.

Calm Before The Storm

So I found out what really happened with my mother and her freak out. I finally dragged it out of my sister. Nobody wanted to tell me because they were afraid I would flip out on her.

Where do I begin. The following all happened between the 22nd of last month and the 4th of this month.

She told my sister that she was going to call CPS on her and get grandparent's rights.
She kept Ollie overnight against my sister's will.
She chased my other sister down the street, mom in the car, sis on foot.
She drove the car into my brother's front door.
She called DH and I to tell us that she saw Hubb's cousin on Dog the Bounty Hunter, which isn't true. In the same conversation, she talked about getting my brother's car fixed. The car was traded in over a year ago. Not a single thing she said in the entire phone call made sense.
She called our in-home daycare lady and kept her on the phone for 2 hours just "chatting".
She called my boss to ask if I was drunk. That was pretty embarrassing to explain.
She has stopped paying the bills. The repo people are going to show up any day now. The insurance has lapsed. The utilities are going to be shut off.
She has hid not paying the bills for 3 months from my dad.
She asked if she could use my credit card because she found something online that she wanted to buy. When I told her no, we don't have credit cards anymore, she asked me if the bank would let her do a cash advance with only a credit card number and expiration date.
She went behind my back and asked Hubbs for money after I told her no.
She has put my dad on an allowance.
My little sister and her husband (who make minimum wage and is trying to support 2 kids) loaned her $1k to pay the bills with. She didn't pay the bills.
She threatened to report my sister's car as stolen. Same goes with the truck they gave to her husband.
She has repeatedly told my dad that she was going to shoot him, and then herself. The guns are now hidden at my home.
She threatened to take a whole bottle of pills.
She told my dad to just divorce her because she wants to be alone.
She stands just inside her door and waits for Hubbs to pick up Monk Man from school so she can run her crazy ass down the driveway to try talking to them.
She watches Monk Man play on the playground every day from her front yard.
She made my grandma (my dad's mom) move out. She blames her for me having issues with my other grandma.

I have had nightmares about her sneaking in to our home and trying to take one of my kids. Hubbs has had to start parking in the school parking lot and walking all the way around to pick up Monk Man instead of parking across the street from the school JUST so that she can't ambush him and make the kids talk to her. I have had to call the school and tell them that she isn't allowed anywhere near Monk Man. I made the school put a note in his file that, under no circumstances, is she to pick him up from school. All 3 people that work in the office with me know about what happened. Our daycare lady knows what happened and knows she can't be around them.

I hadn't heard anything from her between the 5th of this month until yesterday. It was a little too peaceful. I cringed anytime our home phone rang. The house was all locked up all the time. The kids were supervised in the back yard. I didn't let my cell phone out of my sight.

Well, yesterday, she decided to drop in on me at work. Apparently she couldn't wait to give my birthday present to me. But the weird thing is that she was completely normal. Like normal person normal. It was the most bizarre thing ever.

After talking it over with my MIL, the boss lady and Hubbs, all 4 of us have come to the conclusion that this is only the calm before the storm. We are just waiting for something else to happen.

I am ready to be done with her crazy ass. Really. No more contact. Ever. I am appalled at her behavior. If ANYONE threatened to call CPS on me or broke chairs in front of my kids or threatened me with grandparent's rights, they would be dead to me. And she KNOWS I would do it without a second thought. None of those things happened directly to me but I am still THAT pissed off that it happened at all.

Ugh. I could just scream!

MMOB or not?

My mom had a major freak out tonight in front of my nephews. Major as in screaming, cursing, and breaking shit.

This is going to be long.

Ok, so my mom has always been, well to put it nicely, a little off. She claims that she has been battling depression her entire life. Well, she won't go see a shrink and the pills our gullible doc prescribes her really don't seem to ever work. As soon as she decides that the pills aren't working, she takes herself off of them. Doesn't go back to the doc so he can wean her off of them or anything, like a normal person would.

She also does this thing where whenever she feels like she isn't the center of attention all of a sudden she is deathly ill. The best was one Christmas when I was a kid, she decided that she was sick and went to the ER. She convinced some poor ER doc to admit her overnight for observation and missed Christmas. Sadly that is one of the few Christmas' I actually remember.

Anyway, sometime over the weekend, she decided that her current meds weren't working and took herself off them. On Tuesday, my dad had to go see a specialist about his shoulder in the city 3 hours away. My mom was supposed to go with him but ended up staying home so my baby sister didn't have to pay a sitter to watch my nephews. She HATES it whenever my dad does anything without her and makes life miserable for for anyone who crosses her path for a couple of days afterwards. So I expected her to act all bent out of shape when I called that afternoon to find out what the specialist said but I underestimated how bent out of shape she really was.

I called the house and my oldest little sister answered the phone. I asked to talk to my mom. She gave the phone to my mom and this was the conversation:
Mom: Who is this?
Me: Who do you think it is, it's me. How did Dads appointment go?
Mom: I don't know. Ask him yourself.
And she hands him the phone. I talk to him for a minute and then go back to working.

After work, I picked up the boys and they wanted to go over and see my nephews. I saw my mom standing at the front window when we were walking across the sidewalk. By the time I got the boys inside, she had ran off to her room. I go into the living room where everybody else is and the first thing they tell me is that mom is "sick" again. Ok, well, whatever. We said hi to my nephews, I tell my dad about how the cat caught his very first mouse and we leave.

So now it is Tuesday. The boys wanted to stop by to see my nephews again so we did. My dad was standing at the stove cooking dinner and as I walked by, he told me that I probably shouldn't stay long. I asked if everything was ok and he told me to go talk to my sister.

According to my sister, my baby sister dropped off the boys before she went to work. My mom must have been shitty to her yesterday too because she had a "talk" with her. My baby sister left and my mom comes roaring into the kitchen, screaming and cussing (my mom isn't a curser) about something. I have no idea what that something was, my grandma butted herself into the conversation before I could find out. This is when I find out that my mom had decided to take herself off her meds. Anyway my mom started grabbing the kitchen chairs and hitting them on the ground. She broke 6 out of the 8 chairs and ran back into her room. My sister said it was chaos.

That whole meltdown happened in front of my nephews. Now, the baby is barely 4 months old but Ollie is 2 1/2. He doesn't need to see that shit. I know I would have flipped my lid if my boys had seen something like that from my mother. My oldest little sister is 24 and was scared. I can't imagine how scary that nonsense would have been for a 2 year old.

It makes me sick to my stomach that I didn't pack up those boys and bring them home with me. But the only thing I was thinking about was getting my own boys out of that house before something else happened. If we are ever in that situation again, I will be bringing ALL the boys over to my house.

So now I need advice. Do I talk to my baby sister about finding a different daycare situation ASAP or do I keep my nose out of it and hope that she does the right thing?

Do I try to talk to my dad about maybe forcing my mom to get some real help (an intervention or maybe even committing her temporarily) or do I keep my opinion to myself and hope somebody figures it out?

Career Woman

Oh crap! Did I forget to mention that I have started embarking on my career?

Not just my job (which I still LOVE) but my CAREER.

What is it? Are you sitting down?

I am starting my very own Event Planning Business. I am going to focus on weddings but I will offer party planning services as well.

I can't begin to tell you how flucking excited I am to be starting this. And actually following through with it!

More details to come. I promise.

Am I Pushing Them Too Hard?

I was reading on Monk Man's birth board and the post I read was about how independent your 5 year old is. I was SHOCKED at some of the things I read that average 5 year old kids were not doing.

Just a few of the things that made me go, what the hell?:
~~Not showering/bathing alone
Monk Man has been showering and taking baths alone since he was 3. I even trust him enough to put Bobblehead in there with him once in a while. And even HE takes showers and baths alone most of the time.

~~Not wiping their own asses
Really? Gross. I stopped wiping asses when they stopped wearing diapers. It is part of my potty training process. It is simple...you go, you wipe, you flush.

~~Not pouring their own drinks
I can understand this. At 5, they are clumsy as hell and make scary messes. But they also learn how to help clean up their messes. If mom and dad ALWAYS pour the drinks, the kids never learn how to do it themselves.

~~Not getting their own stall in a public restroom
I give my boys plenty of privacy. Bobblehead is still too young to be trusted alone in a public restroom. There are just too many cool things to play with and break in there. But Monk Man? Of course he goes to the bathroom alone. If we are at a place that we know well, like local restaurants, he goes alone. If we are at a very crowded place or out of town, Hubbs or I walk him to the bathroom door but we wait outside.

~~Not dressing themselves
The boys have jeans and tshirts, shorts are added in the summer and coats are added in the winter. If it is an issue with the clothes not matching, well, it's kinda hard to screw up jeans and tshirts. I did that on purpose. They also know which clothes are theirs, Monk Mans are the big ones and Bobbleheads are the little ones. If they happen to get confused, we laugh about it and they go try again. I have tried my damnedest to make getting dressed very easy for them to do.

~~Not brushing their own hair
Ok, this one is just silly if you have a boy. I can understand the girls needing help. But boys? Boy hair is awesomely easy. Monk Man has a Mohawk and does it himself. Bobblehead has a buzz cut but is able to run a comb through it if needed.

What the shit, right? My 3 year old can do most of this stuff.



But then I started feeling bad. Just a little though.

It made me question what my boys ARE doing. Is it NOT normal for them to be able to do things on their own? Am I pushing them too hard? Am I going to screw them up and cause them to need therapy because I won't wipe their asses or make them, gasp, play out in the backyard, double gasp, unsupervised?

Remember Me?

Well, here is another attempt at getting myself back into blogging. I have a few posts in the works but in the meantime, check out this blog, impossibleliving, for some very neat abandoned places photos.

Hair

Well, here is the new cut! I like it a lot more than I thought I would.



I have no idea what happened to my bangs today. It is hot, humid and windy so I guess that is whats wrong??