Not Goldfish Chicken! PARTY Chicken!

Okay, so I have a funny story to share with you about Kayla. The past few days have actually been mostly ABOUT Kayla actually around the house. Funny how that happens sometimes. Although, truth be told, it's nice having her home - I enjoy her company.

We had a 'girls night out' a couple Sundays ago. Chris had left gone to work, and it was just Kayla, Kayte and Jonathan at home. Well, Jonathan really didn't want to stay at home, but he asked if he could go out as well and bring his girlfriend along as well for 'girls night out'. I agreed - those of you who know Jon know that him wanting to go OUT with us is RARE, so I considered it quite the treat that he wanted to spend time with us.

Well, this was at 5. My plan was to leave at 6 and head out to dinner somewhere first, then catch the movie at 7:40. Well, right about 5, Kayla heads out the door with this guy "TJ", whom we have never met. He sat outside in a car and just waited for her. Irritating because she JUST said she was going to go to a movie with us for "girls night out". I called her and asked her where the heck she was going. She happily said "to the mall!" I said "I thought you were going out with us?" She said that she was, she wanted to do it all. I told her that I was leaving in 30 minutes (by this time it was now close to 5:30) with or without her. 6 came and she wasn't home so Jon, Kayte, Ashley (Jon's girlfriend) and I all headed to dinner. Kayla met us there.

We ate dinner, saw the movie (My Sister's Keeper) - big-time tear-jerker by the way - and had a great time. On the way home, Kayla tells me that she needs to go to the walk in clinic. I asked her why. She explains that she needs a note for work.

A note for work? Why??

Well, she called out of work on SATURDAY. We went to see the movie on Sunday Sunday. By the way, the time was now after 10 pm.

I explain to her that, first of all - the clinics are closed. Second of all, she is NOT sick. Third of all, if they even DID give her a note, it would be dated today - Sunday - not Saturday. Why on earth did she need a note?

Well, she explained that she called out of work on Saturday and lied, telling them that she was sick. She was fired from McDonalds for calling out of work too much, and for lying about WHY she called out. I think I told you about the DAY she was fired. She told me she was fired because she "couldn't get along with her boss" but in reality.... she told her boss that her mother had overdosed and was in a coma. Then, who shows up in drive-thru asking for a big mac and Kayla? Julie. They said "Who are you?" She said "Her mom, why?" They called and fired her right then and there. Sadly, it's not even the first time she's said that her mom was in a coma or that her mom overdosed... I recall her using that excuse multiple times. Anyways....

She and I and Kayte talked about her being fired from McDonalds over this. Then we talked about her calling out on Saturday... and why she did it. She wanted to be home for the Kayte and Justin's birthday party. Well, it was her Brother's birthday. It was a planned birthday party... she SHOULD have planned the day off. But she didn't.

So now, she's stuck in this lie. And her bosses at Taco Bell apparently now KNOW about all her lies at McDonalds. Kayla said that she told them, and that is why they expect a doctor's note.

So, I said to her:

Kayla... I tell you what... just this once, why don't you do this:

Go to your boss and tell him/her this:

Listen... here is the whole entire truth:

It was my brother's birthday. My family had a party. Originally I wanted to attend, but I forgot I worked. I LIED to you telling you I was sick. That was wrong of me. I should not have done that.

The TRUTH is that I wanted to be home with the family. As it turned out... my mother tried to kill herself that very morning. She never showed up for the party, and the family was together, and through the family being together, we made it through the day.

She was taken to an Emergency room. They pumped her stomach and she survived. Then they took her to a psyc ward. She is okay now.

I didn't want to call and tell you all of this because -- this very TRUTH is the exact LIE that I told McDonalds. It's ironic. It's sad. And, well honestly, it's true.

I can't get you a doctor's note. I can probably get you something from my mom's nurses telling you that she really IS in the hospital. They probably can’t go into much detail because of her being in the psyc ward, but it'll just tell you she's in I'm sure.

I feel really bad about lying, but I'm hoping that by telling the truth it'll be a good start for me in this new job.

So.... I tell all of this to Kayla and she says "Wow Auntie Tina. That is SUCH a good lie!" I said "KAYLA! What about that is a lie? That is 100% true!! Honey... you don't EVER have to lie! That's how I keep every job I have. TELL THE TRUTH. That's all ANYONE ever wants from you. The truth. Work hard. Be honest. You will get far in life if you live by these things!!"

Well, she sort-of did this. She told them part of the story. They let her keep her job anyways.

Kayla is out there right now… just learning things the HARD way. Regretfully, I feel that is how she is going to have to learn. Last year around Christmas she had nearly one thousand dollars saved up for a car. Since then she’s worked all summer, but has not put one penny of those checks in the bank SINCE Christmas, and has managed to spend all but eight dollars or so. She’s going in her own direction… and nothing I seem to say to her is making any impact. I show her the website to apply for small college scholarships – she sits on Myspace or goes out with friends instead. But I know that – at the age of 18, I have to let her learn. Allow her to make those mistakes.

Kayla and I had a horrible fight, sort-of, the other day. Julie went over to my house and basically told Kayla that I was going to throw her out. Kayla has been going out – a LOT – at night with friends. She’s rarely home over the summer. Spending money. Doing things that, let’s just say – she thinks that we don’t know about but we DO. (Remember, we were 17 and pregnant, so we were not old fogies as parents!) I reminded Kayla that I took an oath before my husband, the family and God that we would see to it that these kids graduated high school and we would do our best to get them INTO college. What they chose to do from there was up to them… but we would, at the very least, get them on that path. She is not yet done with high school… therefore WE are NOT YET done with her. Oie.

Things at home the last month have been…………… odd. While I realize how blessed we are that nothing is really serious… it’s still odd that a lot has happened the past month. I was really, REALLY sick… requiring multiple doctors visits, shots and even an MRI and ER visit. Chris was rushed by ambulance to a hospital. Oh – I haven’t blogged about that!

Chris was horribly sick at his job while in Melbourne, FL. Just feeling dizzy all the time. He wasn’t feeling too well while home a few days before, but we chalked it up to a touch of the flu or whatever. So he calls me and tells me he’s dizzy. It must be bad… he never really complains, and I didn’t realize till later that the poor guy was falling over bad. I ask him if he’s eaten, and he says yes. Well then, I think, it has to be his ears. Can only be ears or sugar, right? I mean, he’s only 41… what else can it be? He at one point mentions “ambulance” but I brush it off as an exaggeration or something – I dunno. I was KICKING myself over that for a LONG LONG time later, let me tell you. Instead, I looked up an address for a local walk in clinic. You see, the kind of work Chris does, you can’t just leave one day and come back to the next, it HAS to be done on a time-line, and they HAD to be done by midnight the day he called me. He snaps back at me when I give him the clinic info “How the heck am I going to get there? I’m working!” I mention that they could take a lunch hour and go, and with that, apparently they decided that Wayne would drop him off and go back to work.

Apparently the next thing that happened was that Chris was ‘trying’ to sign in at the desk of the clinic when he passed out. He awoke in the back, with the doctor trying to do the ‘follow my finger’ exam. When he tried to follow the finger, Chris threw up on the doctor. The clinic doctor called an ambulance and they transported him to a local hospital.

The next phone call I get was from Chris : “Hey honey… now don’t panic. I’m in the back of an ambulance and I’m on my way to the hospital.” Oh yeah…. Don’t panic? Chris has never, in his adult life, been taken by ambulance to a hospital. Not worry??? My butt was in my car so fast, I made it across the State of Florida and was in that ER in 2 hours and 30 minutes. No lie. End diagnosis was Labrynthitis, a swelling of the inner ear…. Not an infection or anything, but caused by a virus attacking something in the inner ear. It self-resolves (goes away on its own) in anywhere from weeks, months, to a year. He’s been getting better – although had an episode even yesterday.

So, there’s me going to the ER with the migraine for over 2 weeks, Chris going to the ER for the first time in his adult life – and by ambulance to boot, Julie overdosing ON her son’s birthday and on the day of a big party for 2 of her kids birthdays, there is some stuff going on with my daughter that I can’t mention here but she could use prayers for love and strength. Oh, Mom going into ICU for heart problems. That phone call was fun… the first thing she tells me, before she tells me where she is or what is going on, she says “promise me you won’t call you sisters”. After I promise her, THEN she tells me that she’s in ICU – for her HEART. Now… how am I not going to tell my sisters that she’s in ICU for her heart? That’s just WRONG! Jeez mom! I told her that I wouldn’t tell them, but I’d post it on my Facebook as a status and then not only would my sisters know, but her sisters and all the family would know and would worry about her. I kinda think she was okay with me telling my sisters at that point. **grin**

School starting is around the corner. We are supposed to have a BIG back to school/birthday party for Justin and Kayte. Gwen wanted to go in (financially) on this party. I’m just not sure about it… how to have it… if I want to have it at the house… how to host it… etc. Every time we host it, it seems to get out of hand. It’s always ‘successful’, but – there are always a LOT more kids than we intended to be there, they always are louder than we thought they’d be (i.e. the neighbors complain), they stay later than we ask them to (have had to stand out front and literally offer to start driving kids home if they didn’t just leave). And, well, the kids are getting OLDER – ya know? And OLDER always comes with whole new sets of problems. 14 and 15 year old kids are different than 17 and 18 year old kids. I don’t know…. Chris and I really need to talk about this some more.

I have to blog about one big thing that is super concerning to me as of late.

Little Kayte isn’t wanting to talk to her mom (Julie) at all after the overdose. She’s really mad at her. Kayla – well, Kayla’s mad, but she’ll talk to Julie when she wants something. Justin… Justin is a bleeding heart and will do ANYTHING for his mother. And I do mean anything. Julie has him absolutely positively wrapped around her finger. And it makes me sick.

The relationship between Julie and Justin is not healthy. I fear it is getting worse actually instead of better. Julie will come in on a Sunday morning, and Julie will walk PAST Kayte and Kayla to get to Justin to say good morning. She – no doubt – favors him. And, I get it that a lot of parents have ‘favorites’. Most try not to show it. She doesn’t hide it. She talks to him all the time. Text… calls… I’ve tried to talk to Julie about it, but she doesn’t see it. She flat-out believes that when Justin grows up and gets married, it should be ‘normal’ for him and his wife to ‘take care of her the rest of her life’. She tells him that this is his responsibility. After all… "who else is going to do it?" Julie, in her childish mind, can't fathom that it's NOT her child's responsibility to actually take care of HER. She doesn’t see a darn thing wrong with it. When Julie is sad, she calls Justin. Happy, Justin. Just wants to talk, Justin. Wants someone to walk her out to her car, Justin. Wants to go to the store with her to get a burger, Justin. It's always Justin.

Recently Kayte had gone on a one-week trip to Miami with a friend and was due back late Saturday night. She gets back close to midnight. When she arrives, Kayte tells me “Auntie Tina… is mom coming over tomorrow, because… I do NOT want to see her. I am still very mad that she tried to kill herself at my birthday party and I am not ready to see her here. If I have to leave tomorrow, I will, but I do not want to see her!”

Well, heck, she just got home! I don’t want her to be forced to leave her own home. So, I sent Julie a text message and told her that Kayte was not ready to see her and that she should not come over for her weekly visit on Sunday. Julie called me Sunday morning and you won’t believe what the first thing she said was.

NOT… “Oh my gosh! My daughter… my youngest daughter is still upset with me? What can I do to help repair the relationship?”

NOT… “Thank you for letting me know. Tell her to take as much time as she needs and I’ll be here whenever she is ready”

NOT… “MAN! I really wanted to see Kayte! I haven’t seen her in weeks!”

Nope! The FIRST WORDS out of her mouth… “What about JUSTIN? Do I still get to see Justin? I mean, he’s not mad at me! Can I see him somehow? What if I picked him up? Can we go to the park? How about lunch? I mean, I can still see Justin can’t I?

She ONLY CARED ABOUT JUSTIN.

It was sick.

Twisted.

I literally laughed and had to stop myself from laughing. Out loud.

I thought I was being punked.

And – let me be clear here – I don’t think this is in any way INTENTIONAL. I believe Julie has absolutely no clue what she is doing here. I believe that she feels nothing but love for Justin and is clueless what she did to Kayte. When she text messages Kayte twice a day saying “I love you”… driving Kayte nuts because Kayte sees it as another “I’m so sorry”, Julie means it as an “I love you” in her head. Julie thinks she loves Justin – and in her mind she can’t “love someone too much”. But she is in Child mode and Justin is being forced into parent mode by his own mother, which just isn’t right. In my opinion that is. Granted I’m no psychologist, but this is my blog, and I’m raising him and these are my thoughts and opinions.

Ya know, ever since I got back from my trip from Tennessee, I am SO EXCITED about when the kids move out. I used to be afraid. Full of dread…. Unsure of what the future would hold. What on earth would we do without a big house? Kids? What would life be like? Just yesterday Chris and I were talking about the SS funds and VA funds stopping and us being forced to sell the house and moving. He sounded like he was going to miss the house. But I was just sitting here thinking about moving myself. Montana. Virginia maybe. Tennessee? California? Mississippi? New Hampsire? Arizona? Chicago? Who cares…. We can really live ANYWHERE that we can get jobs. We don’t need a small apartment; we can get a mid-size condo perhaps. But goodness the thought of it is so exciting to me now.

Julie just called. Got the check in from Victim’s assistance. I’m telling you – Chris was right when she said that she pees rainbows. Not only did she close on her house… the one that she hadn’t made a single payment on in over a year and then actually get a check for $1,200 in the mail…. BUT… now she dates a scum-of-the earth criminal guy. A felon. A known criminal who beats the crap out of women. A guy so shady that everyone she knows – INCLUDING I might add the guy’s OWN MOTHER tells Julie that she should RUN from him – she dates him, he beats the crap out of her, and now Victim’s assistance cuts her a check to move. The girl pees rainbows. It’s simply amazing.

I’m eating leftovers. My nails haven’t been done in a year or so. And she is peeing rainbows.

Amazing.

Speaking of not-so-lucky – I called the VA asking about Kayla’s money because I swear it seems like they should be paying for her while she is still in high school.

I loved what this super honest guy tells me.

“Ma’am… we have a lot of paperwork here at the VA. A lot of military who are active duty who take priority. It could honestly take a year. Or more.”

A YEAR?

OR MORE?

SERIOUSLY?

I think it’s time to write Senator Nelson, the guy who has helped me out TWICE in the past, another letter. It’s already been 7 months now…. A year??? Jeez Louise. And it’s not guaranteed that they are going to say ‘yes’… they very well may say no!

I told the guy on the phone… “Listen. I’m not a military person. I am an Aunt who is caring for these beautiful kids after their dad died in the military. To be honest with you, I’ve had these problems ever since getting them four years ago. It took three years just to begin getting VA death benefits for them at all. And sir, you have been honest with me so far, so let me ask you this: I’ve been telling these kids that when they start college, they are going to get funds from the GI bill to pay for college. Well, sir, from as far as I can see, everything that has to do with military and the VA has proven to be extremely time-consuming and difficult to do. Can you tell me if indeed these kids are going to be able to enroll in college and have the GI bill cover them right away in college?” He told me that he honestly didn’t know how that worked. I have serious doubts now about the timeliness of this GI bill being taken care of, but I guess we shall see. Course, having never been to college myself I’m not all that sure about how and when to start everything, but I’m hoping their high school guidance counselor will help us with all of that. I already have some kind of approval letter from the VA saying that they can go to the Dale Mabry campus of HCC. Don’t know for sure that the letter is enough… but I suppose it’s a start. :o)

Chris and I went back to Church last week and this week. If I may be perfectly honest here in my blog…. We’ve missed a few weeks. More than a few actually. It’s been – how do I put this – it’s been difficult to ‘plug back in’ after being ‘unplugged’ from the praise team. Yeah… that, I think, words it correctly for me anyways. You know what I mean, you ‘fit in’ to a church in one way, then when you get disconnected, you have to put your roots in some other way? Well, we had no other roots. Choir? Well… in the choir it was always “we remember when you were out there” kind of stuff. Or we just remembered what it was like to praise and worship with the praise team. It – was very hard. And we have not been able to plug back in. Whether I am right or wrong… whether it’s pride or it’s justified or whatever the reason… it’s been difficult to plug back in. Well, last week Chris and I went to our Jason Nelson’s new church. We liked it okay. This last weekend we went back to Van Dyke again. There sure is no place like home, that’s for sure. They had a new preacher this week, and he was fantastic.

Chris and I have often thought about why it is that we don’t have more friends. Why we don’t ‘get out more’. Why we don’t have dinner with friends, neighbors, etc. This preacher hit that nail RIGHT ON THE HEAD. He talked about how it was that Jesus’ disciples could, in their day in time, with no internet, no Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, could gather 5,000 men (then add women and children to that) in one place to hear Jesus talk. How AMAZING is that? Could we do the same thing today?

In a society that has more connections with people faster than ever in more ways to connect to people faster than ever world-wide… we are more disconnected than ever. And, boy is he right. He asked how many of us know our neighbors. Well, I know my next door neighbors. I know the guys across the street…. But I don’t REALLY know them. I can’t tell you for sure what they do for a living. I don’t know them all that well. And for SURE I have never had dinner with them. Never sat down to chat with them. Just said hi from the yard is about the extent of it. Could I get 5,000 people to an event? Shoot… I couldn’t get 10 people to a purse party… never mind 5,000 to an event.

He talked about how he was in college once and they have a social dorm just down the hall from everyone’s rooms. The idea was everyone was going to meet for dinner and talk. He got his Burger King meal and went to this room. Nobody was there. He walked down the hall only to find everyone in their rooms… on their computer… eating their own fast food – instant messaging one another. He shouted to them all “get OFF the computer and come into the room and actually TALK to each other – FACE to FACE!” I laughed when I heard this because I can recall many a time when Chris and I actually sat in the living room… laptops on our laps…. And actually did the same thing – instant messaged each other. Sitting literally two feet from each other. Funny. But…. Not really.

Yet…. All this technology has turned us into a society that is AFRAID to go and knock on our neighbor’s door and invite them for dinner. The preacher said… “You never really know someone until you eat with them…. There is a tendency to let your guard down when you have your feet under the same table and relax.” Something to that effect. We were all given a task while in church to go take 5 minutes and go up to a perfect stranger and introduce ourselves and find out about the other person. I tell you, that was the HARDEST five minutes of my life. Actually, after we found them and started talking it was easy. It was actually FINDING someone and walking up and STARTING to talk that was hard. After that, it was easy. I guess I need to remember that because the next task we were all charged with was going up to our neighbor at home, picking one house, and knocking on the door before Friday. We are to invite that family to dinner.

OIE

You have absolutely NO IDEA how hard that is going to be for me. I’m sure for Chris as well. We are two peas in a pod. Much alike in many ways.

Our good friend Denise said “I live down the street and we haven’t had dinner together… you can come to MY house!” Well, that’s a nice out…. Really it is… and I do believe I am going to take her up on that…. But I believe that I want to ALSO knock on a neighbor’s door.

Because becoming friends with new people, breaking bread with friends, sharing, caring – that’s all part of Jesus’ plan. And it’s uncomfortable for me, but I know it will make me a better person. I may not have to preach the word of God to them. But I think that they will SEE Jesus in me… and that will be enough.

Now… what to cook might be a whole different set of worries……..

Party chicken?

(Those of you who read Facebook know my Goldfish vs. Party Chicken recipe. It’s NOT Goldfish Chicken. It’s PARTY Chicken. And it’s YUMMY!)

Happy Birthdays

We had a fabulous day on Saturday, despite Julie.

The PLAN was to have the family come up for Kayte and Justin's birthday's. Kayte had turned 16 on Wednesday... Justin's actual 17th birthday was on Saturday. We were going to relax by the pool... swim or float around by the pool all day... maybe play cards or watch tv or whatever we wanted... just - BE TOGETHER as a family relaxing all day. The for dinner the kids wanted something simple - pizza. I had offered to cook them whatever they wanted, but I had already made Kayte's favorite (Blackened Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo) on Wednesday, and Justin's favorite by far really is Pizza -- so Pizza it was going to be. Besides, it was supposed to be a relaxing day anyways, right?

Well, Mom was going to be late because she was with Tatiana at a tea party of some sort. Auntie Katie was late as she had to work. Amanda dropped Gene off at work and then came over mid-morning. A couple of the kids CLOSE friends came over. Nana and Papa came up about 1. But we couldn't find Julie. She was supposed to come over early... in the morning even.... but we couldn't find her.

Finally I got her on her cell and she tells me - in a SEVERELY slurred voice - that she is in the hospital because her head hurt from being hit way back when her boyfriend hit her in the head. Well, I immediately knew she was lying. First of all, she hadn't yet been seen and she was already SEVERELY slurring.... secondly - I could just tell she was lying. Badly lying. Julie told me she was at TGH, so I called my mom for help (who works at TGH).

Well, long story short - Julie wasn't at TGH, she was at University Community Hospital. A friend of hers found her in her room hallucinating with a nearly empty pill bottle of Ambien next to her. She went for help and took her to the closest hospital. She stayed in UCH ER all of Saturday and when I tell you Julie tried every way in the world to ruin our day on Saturday - I mean she tried every single way possible.

First of all, I wasn't going to even tell the kids until Sunday. It was, after all, Justin's birthday. How do you tell a young man that his mom tried to kill herself ON his birthday? I was just going to tell the kids that she was sick or something and just couldn't come... then tell them the truth on Sunday. But -- Julie kept calling phones. And calling.

And calling.

And calling.

And calling.

And calling.

She called the house. She called our cells. She called the kids cells. She called every number she could think of. When she got ahold of my sister Katie and thought she was talking to her daughter Kayte and started - in her horrible slurred voice - talking about all the medication she had taken, on top of the pot she smoked - and how horribly sorry she was.... I knew I had to sit the kids down and talk to them.

So I sat them down. Julie had apparently already talked to Kayla. All the kids were - of course - angry and upset. But we vowed to go on with the party and have a good day.

The remainder of the party, Julie continued to call. Cells, house phone, etc. Mom, Chris and I fielded most of the calls - telling her to STOP. I finally had to tell her that if she didn't STOP it - I would be forced to get a restraining order on her. She only called twice after that. Course, we also called the hospital and told them to take the flipping phone OUT of her ROOM!

Julie is now at St. Joes. I'm assuming she'll be out in the next day or two. Julie knows just what to say and do to minimize her stay. She reminded me today that she has been "so good for so long" and - she is right. But I reminded her that she can't just go from happy-go-lucky to swallowing a bottle of pills on her son's birthday because she can't afford her rent payment. It's just not right.

The main thing I keep thinking over and over again though is... how incredibly HAPPY the kids were all day and all night long. I mean, you look at the photos and such of the kids and you can NOT tell that they just found out mom just tried to kill herself. Why? Because they have FAMILY that TRULY loves them so very much. Supportive family. Each of you that are there for them... that mean so much to them. Because all their family has been there for them through all these times... they had a safe place to fall on Saturday and they didn't miss a beat!

I should really run... it's after midnight and I have to get up to work in the morning.

Please say some prayers for Julie and the kids.

And - by the way - I'm on my THIRD headache free day! It's amazing and I feel GREAT! I'm also down almost 20 lbs. I'm not really 'trying' but it's just, I guess, a side effect of not feeling all that well and eating only a little when hungry. I dunno... I'll take it.

Growing old is mandatory; Growing up is optional. Chili Davis

The Words Not Said

It's been a long time. I am not going to say here that it's because I've been busy, because it's not true. It's not because I've been too busy to blog. If you read some of my 'older' blogs.... then read some of my blogs from the past 6 months to a year, you will see a difference.

The truth is... I had a funk about me. I had... "something" in my life which was causing me a great amount of great emotional pain, discomfort, and it was just ------ uncomfortable. I've been stuffing it. I'm not the kind of person who deals with things 'head on'. When given a situation... I walk (or run). When Chris and I disagree... I go for a walk to clear my head. I do not deal with things head-on (much as that might surprise some of you who read some of the things I say in my blog). In my HEAD... I am clear and decisive because... in my BLOG... I get to ---- THINK. I ----- plot out or rather THINK out all sides of a situation (which is what I do when I walk)... then I formulate the best course of action (which is what I do towards the end of my walk) then I decide what to do when I get back (which is what I do after I blog). This................... situation.............. I was dealing with..... I didn't know what to do with. It was eating me up. It got to the point where I was unable to blog without it (the situation) overflowing into my blog. And... truly and honestly I wanted THIS blog to be a place about THE KIDS and Julie and that whole situation.... NOT about me and my life..... and it was becoming obvious to me that I couldn't make that happen. So I started to just give "updates" - quick and simple - so as to not divulge any personal heartfelt information to you. Right or wrong... it's what I had to do.

Well, I have not rid myself of that............ cancer, so to speak. Which....... is honestly what it felt like. I now feel..... HAPPY. Loving. Free. Loving. Happy. Blissful. Did I mention Loving? For anyone who even feels like asking - I will NOT go into a single detail about it. I am done with it, and I am thrilled with being done with it. Suffice to say, my home life is happy and that is ALL that matters. Well, all that matters as well as the fact that I personally am happy and have done the right thing. :o)

Okay.... well..... I am THRILLED to be back 'online'............ where do I start?

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Report cards came in! Kayte and Justin both have HONOR ROLL! Kayte has the highest GPA! Also Kayte is now out of Reading, having scored high enough on her FCAT (Justin did that last year already.) Jonathan didn't do so well... he had two D's - Algebra and Drama, the rest were A's, B's and C's. Kayla had all A's, B's and C's I believe, but what shook me to the core was the fact that she had 84 missed classes.

EIGHTY FOUR

How does a kid miss 84 classes and still pass the 11th grade?

One teacher gave her 20 "excused" absences. This was her teacher right after lunch. When I asked her about it she told me that the teacher was "dumb". Well... I don't think that's right.... I think the teacher needs to be counseled on what an 'excused' absence really is, and I plan on writing her about it! I know that Kayla would often tell me that she took two lunches to talk to her friends.... but I just never imagined the teacher would just ALLOW it and call it excused. I mean.... come on!

But - what has me on cloud nine is that Justin and Kayte - the two birthday kids this month - have honor roll! I'm so proud of them!!!!!!!!!!!

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Oh.............. BIG NEWS!!!

Gaither High School has a pop chorus group called "Showcase". Jonathan auditioned last year and didn't make it. I only say that so that you know that he isn't a 'shoe in' to make it all the time given the fact that he is a singer.

This year ------ HE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are all SO PROUD OF HIM!!!

The funniest thing they did... and I think I can say this here because none of next years kids will read this..... they do this thing to the newbies.... they called us ahead of time telling us they were coming over to pick him up and taking him to breakfast. At 3am.

At 3am the doorbell rings.

Two boys are there, come running up the stairs with swim noodles in hand and a whistle. The whack Jon with the noodles and blow the whistles, telling him to get up. Get up. Get up. Jonathan is now awake, screaming, trying to get away -- terrified. We, of course, have photos.

Once Jon finally realizes the guys are two boys he knows from Showcase, he calms down. Only after 5 minutes or so. Did I mention how LOUD this all was? Oh yeah... really loud!

It's only then that Jon realizes that they are holding -- a yellow sequin tiny top, a black mini skirt, black high heals, and a diaper. The boys tell him to 'put it on'. Jon tell them "not on your life". The guys tell him that... "now that you are in Showcase, you WILL wear what costumes you are given, and you will wear it with pride" or something like that. It takes a bit of convincing... but Jon thinks... eh - I'm just in my bedroom, what can it hurt? So... he finally decides to slip it on. He puts it on... and the boys say "okay, lets go to breakfast" and all the color drains out of Jon's face as he realizes that he now has to go OUT. To eat. In a restaurant. In THIS? No. Freaking. Way. He tells them NO. They again remind him of the Showcase costume and something about minding his elders in Showcase. He fights it, but to no avail. He ends up leaving with the two young men, yellow sequin top, so tight and short that he tummy was exposed, mini skirt, diaper, and high heals that fit him perfectly -- which, I might add, he walked freakishly well in.

Well, come to find out when they got home, the guys picked up two others on the way to breakfast. Jon was the first of three. Then, on the way to I-Hop, the driver was doing 50 in a 45. At 5 am. And the police noticed. Pulled on the side of a busy highway (Dale Mabry) the police officer comes over with his flashlight... shining in the drivers face.

"Have you been drinking young man?"

"Um, no officer! We were just on our way to breakfast!"

With that, the officer shines the flashlight to the rest of the occupants in the car. He sees Jon, a very white young man with a yellow skin tight sequin top, short skirt, high heels, and diaper. Another young man with a nightie, diaper, bib and a pacifier.

The police officer then flashes his flashlight back to the driver and asks "what is going on here?" The boy explains about how the boys all go to Gaither High School and the guys in the funny clothes just made Showcase and were being hazed and taken to breakfast. In a stern voice the policeman says "you boys wait right here!" He takes his walkie talkie and radios for someone to come to the scene. "Backup" the boys figure. He's called for backup. OMG!

The poor boys are freaking out.

Another car now pulls up.

An officer gets out and turns on his flashlight. He too comes up to the car, and the other officer who has already been there says "you have to see this!" The officer that just arrives looks at the boys in the car. The two officers have a good laugh.

You have to imagine they sure don't see stuff like that every day.

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I have more news about Julie. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want me telling her business, but like it or not - she could use prayers.

She went through a really, REALLY, hard time a couple weeks ago. She had been 'dating' a really rough guy. But to understand that, you have to understand how and where she lives. She lives in a rough neighborhood. Personally I think she needs to shut her door and live peacefully on her own, out of crime, hate, and anything else 'bad' that goes on the 'the hood' in which she lives. However, I understand that I have always lived in nice neighborhoods and really don't know what it's like. Julie tells me that it's "not possible". That she HAS to "live" as these cockroaches live. She must adapt... she must "fit in".... she must act as they act, do as they do. Well, her "boyfriend" was scum of the earth. We all knew it before we really knew anything about him. The very fact that Julie refused to give us his NAME told us that he was no good. Julie said "call him Red". We wanted to look him up, she said no. Now we find out he's done all kinds of Felonies and even told Julie that he has KILLED people. KILLED??? OMG. Okay... well anyways....

And my apologies Julie - this story IS second hand - but it's my version of what you told me -

A couple weeks ago he got really drunk. Well, he always gets really drunk, he drinks from the time he wakes up till he goes to bed, but he REACTED badly this time. It was I think a Thursday. He wanted to start a fight with a neighbor and Julie made him come inside. Red's two kids were inside sleeping (5 and 6 years old.) Apparently he was not happy that Julie made him come inside and he got a knife turned it around and hit Julie on the head with it multiple times. This knocked her to the ground.

She then tried to get to a phone. He ripped her house phone out of the wall and took her cell phone.... so she was trapped.

That man sat man sat on her and punched her in the face continuously. While his innocent children slept.

He then got the knife and held it to her neck. You see, he already has more than 9 felony arrests (at least). He's got to be worried about the other felonies he hasn't yet be caught for. And now.... this? He told Julie that if he were going to prison... it was damn sure going to be for murder this time. He'd just kill her and be done with it. And with that.... he took the knife and held it to her neck. Sliced her neck.... not across the throat like you'd see on a movie. The back of the neck and down to her collar bone area - about 6 inches or so.

Again, he did this as his 5 and 6 year old kids slept.

Julie was begging for her life. But he said he would rather kill her than be charged with some less criminal felony. As the night wore on - did I mention already that he held her there ALL NIGHT LONG - Julie began to beg for this man to just kill her and get it over with. So incredibly sad. Night turned into day and I guess the guy eventually fell asleep.

Sometime in the morning Julie broke free and went to a neighbors house where she was able to call 911 and call police for help. They arrested "Red" and charged him with 3 Felony counts - Aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment and tampering with a witness. They also tagged a 4th charge of some drug charge that he had when he and Julie went to Miami - and his bond is over $30,000... so I think he'll be in jail for a while.

Some loser, eh? Yeah, she sure can pick 'em.

Speaking of which, I supposed Julie expects me to tell you, since she posted it on Facebook telling the world - expecting me to put it in my blog - Julie has a new job. She is working a phone sex line. I had posted before that she has done that before. Her kids were little.... Ron was working overseas.... and she actually did really well at that job back then. Now.... not so good. Maybe the times.... maybe she's older or more rough around the edges.... I dunno.... but anyways - it is what it is... and that's the deal.

*****************************************************************************

Chris and I had a simply FANTASTIC week a few weeks ago. His dad owns a home up in Tennessee. It was falling apart because we had renters in there who had taken advantage of us. Originally Doug had two kitchens in the house. Two refrigerators, two stoves, two sets of counters and cabinets. There were holes in the floors, ceilings, walls, etc. A few weeks before Chris and I got there Chris and a whole crew of family members had done a ton of work to level the house, put in some flooring, paint and just do all kinds of work.

Chris had mentioned going up there 'alone' to do some more work to finish up the house so that we might be able to sell it to get out from under the note. Well, I knew it had a lot of work left to be done. I knew we had a vacation we had hoped to take in July... but with the economy - who really knew if we could take it. So... a few days before he left... I asked my boss if I could take the week off to go with him. I figured: what's the worst he could say? No? Well, he said - "Sure! You deserve it!" As fate so often has it... our Durango broke down just days before the trip as well. Evie jumped in to save us and said that she would be happy to come with us and would allow us to take her Truck up to Tennessee. God had, once again, stepped in to save us.

At the time I didn't know God was also stepping in planning the entire trip - yet He was. :o)

We drove up to Tennessee and once there, Evie went to visit family.

Now, you have to realize there isn't much to this house. No furniture. Just a window-shaker for an AC. No bed - we slept on air mattresses. No stove (someone had stolen ALL appliances out of both kitchens). The trip before this one Chris and family replaced the sink and toilet because someone had come in and broken the sink and toilet - thank goodness. There was no kitchen sink however. We called it... "camping, but not really".

Chris and I worked our TAILS off. Up at the crack of dawn. Ate a little something, worked all day, worked all night, grilled out for the most part on a gas grill (eating on the tailgate of the truck) then back to work until we just about passed out about midnight or so. Then rinse and repeat again when the rooster crowed at dawn.

The time alone gave Chris and I the time to -- well -- be alone. I mean... REALLY alone. No kids. No house. No bills. No car (well, not our car that is). No job. No stress. No worries.

Just

Us

And ya know what we found out?

We really and truly LOVE each other. When push came to shove.... when the chips were down.... we are madly and truly in love.

And let me tell you why that is important. Often times people are in love only because of circumstance. They are in love BECAUSE of the kids. They are in love BECAUSE they work in the same field. They are in love BECAUSE of what their husband does for a living. Or BECAUSE of how much money their husband makes or wife makes. Or BECAUSE of what their wife 'does' for them. To find out that you can take all the 'layers' of life away from your marriage.... skim it down to the bone and find out that you truly madly love that person... is so so so so great.

And some of you might be going... "well... duh!" But let me remind you....

We met when we were like 16 or 17 or whatever. We were kids. Then we HAD a kid. Then another kid. Then my sister's kids. And lately -- lately I think there has been this underlying FEAR of.................

"What if.................. what if we are alone after the kids............ alone for the FIRST TIME and realize.... huh.... I don't like her. Or.... I don't like him."

What then??????

You hear about that happening after 25 years of marriage, right?

What happens then? We become that statistic? YUCK.

Well, as often happens - God walked into our lives and said -- "Come into this house and let me show you." And show us he did. We worked. We talked. We worked some more. We talked some more. We loved. We shared. We enjoyed. We evolved.

What a week.

And you should SEE the pictures of the house! If you have Facebook.... go to my facebook and check 'em out! I won't post them here, as there are just too many of them. Or... email me and I'll send them to you if you are really interested! They are way good!

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I should also mention about the migraine. The big one. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

I have had a migraine for more than 2 weeks now.

And before anyone even mentions it... it is NOT stress related. It's really kind of funny actually that it's the first thing that comes to mind. Stress, then triggers. My doctors and I have ruled those two out. I'm actually the most UN-stressed I have been in more than a year this past month now that I'm free of what I mentioned in the beginning of this blog. I'm not just saying that.... I literally feel remarkably free of stress. I don't yell at the kids hardly. At chorus... if I can't make it... I can't make it and don't worry about it. I'm... not the same person I was before.

I have been to the Emergency room - only the third time in my lifetime. I have been to the doctor twice. (Family practice and Neurologist) I have taken so much medication that I think I could kill an elephant. If I took it all at once that is. Okay, not really all at once. Now, before I get any long lectures from pharmacists out there, I worked for 16 years in the medical field... I didn't do anything to kill my liver or anything - I was..... somewhat..... smart..... about taking too much medication. For example: on Friday the 12th - one of my HORRIBLE headaches (they were all horrible, but that day was really long and really horrible) throughout the entire day I took: 3,200mg of Ibuprofen, 6 Fioricet, 6 Excedrin Migraine, 4 Sudafed, 4 Tylenol Cold and Sinus, 4 Tylenols and what killed me was that between 9 pm and 1am I had 3 - count 'em - 3 of those 5-hour energy drinks. Yeah.... not good. Puking my guts up by 5 am the morning of the 13th.

The doctors and I have talked about triggers... and I'm not eating or drinking any triggers. The really ironic part is: I haven't had a single glass of red wine since before Chris and I went to Tennessee. Even before that, being a person with migraines for a lifetime, I'd control that with Ibuprofen: knowing that if I took 2 Ibuprofen before having a glass of wine, I would not have any migraine. But still.... haven't had any at all in a while. No chocolate. No caffeine (not that I ever drank much soda to begin with, but still.) Some sugar substitutes cause migraines, but I don't use those either. So... my doctors have no clue. The ONLY thing they can think is that I was off the preventative pills for a while. They were expensive... and when I needed to cut costs at home, something for 'me' rather than the kids was going to be on the chopping block. BUT - I have since learned that two months ago they came out with a generic for this preventative pill.... SO... there is no need anyways to cut this cost! I've been back on the preventative pill for a couple weeks... but still.... the headache continues.

I had an emergency MRI yesterday after seeing the Neurologist. First of all, the Neurologist (new to me, I'd never seen her before) was FURIOUS with Tampa General Hospital. She kept asking me: "How could they let you go... a migraine patient who walked in with a migraine for more than 10 days at the time, and NOT give you a Triptan? I don't understand??" I just said... I didn't know. A triptan, apparently, is a migraine medicine. I told her I told them that I had Fioricet, but Fioricet is for general headaches, a triptan is for actual/true migraines. Those who have Migraines actually KNOW the difference between the two. She said "I don't know what you are going to end up paying TGH, but to walk out of there with a shot that ended up not helping and NO prescription for a Triptan is absolutely ridiculous." And... in retrospect, she is correct. I plan on writing a letter to the head of TGH when I am feeling better. The doctor himself was very kind. The staff too was kind. The wait... not so good. The fact that the toilet in the room (which itself was rather cool ) didn't flush and was full of poo - was disGUSting! The only way to go to the bathroom... in my GOWN... was to go back out to the waiting room. Yuck. Not gonna happen. I held it - for a VERY long time. HOURS after they took out my IV. And... if you've ever held it AFTER having an IV, you KNOW how uncomfortable that can be. LOL

Oh.... the "good news" about all of this.... about the migraine? I've lost 10lbs. So far. Just... not hungry. Can't eat. Sometimes I throw up if I do when it's really bad. For example, it's now 2:30 on Wednesday and the last thing I had was dinner last night. I'm going to a meeting tonight for Showcase for Jonathan, so I can't make dinner for the kids... so I honestly don't know when I'll actually eat next.... except that my pharmacist JUST told me that for the steroids I need to take when I get home (because I forgot to take them to work with me) I absolutely HAVE to eat. SHOOT. ARGH. So it'll have to be toast of something simple on the tummy.

Ya know what's funny? I just got the paperwork from the hospital. There is a lot I find funny about the paperwork... the fact they said I didn't tell them I had a low-grade fever.... how long we were even THERE.... but the thing I found the most funny was that he said, and I highlighted it so that I could find it again, and this was referring to my describing this particular headache: "not the worst of her life, therefore I doubt SAH". Now I don't know what the heck SAH is.... but - this is - by far, and hear me when I say this loud and clear - by FAR - the WORST headache of my life. NEVER have I had a headache like this. Chris can confirm for me if I have ever - in my headache stupor - said something different. And I realize I very well may have said something else... because I have in many instances recently been not making ANY sense and I get that. I got an email from our team coordinator of our chorus who put something in the chorus newsletter talking about my headaches calling me "loopy" and when I questioned her about it, she said she was trying to be "nice" about the conversation we had. My reply...? "We had a conversation??" LOL

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I tell you all, it is a pleasure to be back online. This blog will hopefully be less "here is your update"-ish and more "OH-MY-GOSH" and "Okay guys, this is how I feel"-ish... because that is how this blog was intended to be. Today... well.... today I just have this migraine, and so - if there is any part of it that sounds.... I don't know... negative.... please understand that is probably why.

Please know that I am blissfully happy. Sure, the kids are teenagers. Two SENIORS (oh my GOSH) and two JUNIOR (oh my GOSH) which will come with a whole set of - well - moments! Good moments.... bad moments... and... all in all... moments that we can all share together! You can all laugh with me.... cry with me.... and pray with me.

Thanks for being there with me through it all.

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22

Stress Headaches?

Yes I know… “Tina, do you know how long it’s been since you blogged?” Yes… I know.

Honestly I think I’m not blogging as much anymore because I know Julie and sometimes the kids read the blogs. I really hate that, and feel like I’m forced to hide my feelings. So I stuff them down and every week or two they just bubble up and I have to get something out. It was never my intention to blog in order to talk bad about anyone… it was to get out my feelings, put them on paper, and in doing so, relieve some of my inner stress. It works – but Julie and Kayla have both talked to me about the blog recently and I feel bad that they interpret it that way. So… I blog less. Not because Julie is doing so much better – but because I am stuffing my feelings. Stuff still happens around the house all the time – trust me on that one.

I had a scary episode about two weeks ago. First you have to know I get headaches.
All.
The.
Time.
Migraines run in the family, and I just get them often. I was on medicine to prevent them, but it cost too much and that’s a whole different story. So… I’m at work in the morning and I start to feel --- weird. I get a headache, but not a sinus headache… not a migraine… not a stress headache… I have no idea what it IS – but I do know what it’s not.

By the time I got home for lunch I had taken my second Fioricet (medicine for headaches). The first one didn’t touch it, so I didn’t expect that the second one would do much good either. This pain in my head was – different. It was a very localized and very sharp pain right over my left eye. At times it throbbed something horrible… if I bent over even the slightest – I could feel every beat of my heart feeling like it was going directly to the spot in my head and that my head might just explode. I thought to myself… “Jeez, I’m gonna stroke out or something and nobody is going to know I was hurting or what medicine I’ve taken!” So, I called Chris to just let him know that I wasn’t feeling so good and I wanted to describe the pain to him “Just in case something happened.”

Well, I quickly found out that those were NOT the right words to tell your husband. He FREAKED out. He and Wayne were on a job, but he was coming home. I told him not to… but he wouldn’t listen. He insisted I stay home and call a doctor. Well, I didn’t want to stay home – but I would agree to make an appt at the doctors to see what was up. Later that afternoon the two of us went to the doctors together. Sure enough… it wasn’t a headache. Well, not a normal headache anyways. My blood pressure was sky high.

She gave me a pill to take at the office and I had to wait for the blood pressure to start coming down to a safe level before they would let us leave. They added another medicine to what I’m already taking. I knew it wasn’t good when she was talking to Chris about the signs to look for to take me to the emergency room: half of my face not moving, drooling, etc. Yuck.

Well, it’s been two weeks now and – thankfully – my blood pressure is better. I know this because I was deathly ill last Monday and had to go BACK to the doctors. Test showed I had two flus… type A and type B. They told me they had never seen anyone test positive for BOTH types of flu before. Guess I’m just lucky like that, eh?

Honestly, I’ve just been SO stressed lately. The biggest stressor would be my office move that is to happen in four weeks. Four! My boss JUST signed the lease for the new location in Safety Harbor earlier this week. Now he’s on vacation for the next week and a half. He made me “project manager” for this move… which I honestly hate. It’s not that I can’t figure out what to do – it’s that he is SO particular, he is SO careful with his money, and he is a hoarder who has a huge room full of stuff that needs to be either tossed or moved. By far, that is the thing that has me all tied up in knots the most. This room is something that **I** cannot do. My two bosses need to go back there and determine what needs to be saved and what needs to be tossed. There is a whole story to further demonstrate how particular he is about this kind of stuff… but I shouldn’t go into that online. LOL

The second biggest stressor would be Kayla. She doesn’t THINK she is doing anything wrong. But – I feel it. She is making bad choices. I think I told you already that she was almost fired from work for giving away food. Well, she is now working again, albeit not a whole bunch of hours. She was also skipping classes in school a LOT. She had at least 10 skipped classes in Jan and Feb, and so far in March (since we’ve talked to her about it) she’s only had one. She isn’t saving her money… in the past month she has cashed out her paychecks and put in a whopping $50. But then, she’s withdrawn over $150… so she’s going the wrong way towards saving for a car.

She also got upset with me the other day, sending me a text message (while she was in school) telling me that she feels that I don’t love her anymore. Well – she isn’t HERE. She leaves for school at 6:30 in the morning. She sends me a text message about 2 every afternoon informing me of where she is going to be for the evening, and then I see her about 10 at night as she’s running up the stairs, into the shower, and then into bed.

Here was my weekend with Kayla.
Friday at 3:30 a text “Sleeping over Jessikas. Love you”.
Saturday at 8:31pm a text “Going to the club K”.
Sunday at 1pm a text “Going to Kevins for dinner after work.”
Monday at 2pm a text “Hey after school I’m going to Jessica’s house. We are baking a cake for a friends birthday then going to USF. Be home by 10”. Right after that text message I got one saying “I love you even though you NEVER say that to me anymore.” Well – I don’t usually text the kids “I love you” notes… I talk to them in person… but whatever. An hour and a half later on Monday she sent me another text asking ME to bake the cake for her and her friends. “Can you please bake me a cake and I will put the frosting on it. Pllllllleeeeeeeaaaaaaseeeee BEST AUNT EVER”. Of course, I did bake the cake.
Tuesday night she worked and the only text message I received was one asking to pick her up at work. I was out at chorus rehearsal, but Chris did pick her up.
Wednesday, I got at 2:10pm “Going to Jessica’s after school. We are going to chill at USF.”

Then my sister Katie calls me. She was managing another branch of SunTrust today. Who came through the door at noon? You know – smack dab in the middle of the school day? Kayla!! As soon as Kayla heard that her Aunt Katie was there she bolted out the door. Did she actually think my sister wouldn’t call me and tell me that Kayla skipped school today? Funny.

We also got a call from the school last Monday. They said she wasn't in school. She said she was... and with all of her skipped days/classes - I don't believe her. Chris is going to talk with her when she gets home tonight. I don’t know what more we can do for her. She’s choosing not to go to school and not to stay at home.

Ya know… the more I think about it the more upset I get. I’m sitting here at work – nearly in tears (and sometimes actually IN tears) because of things that are going on at home for us financially. And… on top of that, I have to worry about if Kayla is getting into trouble and if she’s choosing to stay in school? That’s just basic common sense. That should NOT be something I have to worry about.

The financial stuff is frustrating because I think it’s all things that I shouldn’t worry about. I know God has ALWAYS provided. And yet – here I am worried about what’s going to happen.

The jobs that Chris had been doing are slowing down. He needs some work… and he is SO GOOD at it, so it’s really frustrating that he’s not working. He wants to get his General Contractors license – but that takes money and time off work for schooling. So we have to actually get ahead. But he should get it because he is so good and he'd make an awesome GC. I pray about it often… but sometimes I get concerned if my ‘fear’ cancels out the prayers. I’m supposed to be trusting in Him… and if I don’t – maybe He won’t listen to my prayers.

Then we got news today on Chris’s dad’s house up in Tennessee. We received a nice letter from a woman at Century 21 who knew Doug. She said that she’d be happy to try to get his house sold for us. We had her go and take a look at the house and she described it as “scary” when she first walked in. The first thing she saw was a big hole in the floor. She said we couldn’t possibly sell it for more than 25-30k. Well, we need to clear 45k on it to come out even… so……… ARGHHHHHHH

It needs work, and Chris CAN do the work…but he would need to go up to Tennessee and do the work himself. Pay for it himself (including turning on all utilities for the time in which he is there). And then hope that the work he does means the house can sell for more. A LOT more. But… I doubt that repairing a hole in the floor is going to increase the value of the home by 20k. I know the little town where the house is just isn’t doing very well. They’ve had several factories shut down. I think Chris said they were down to 8,000 people living in the town now.

Maybe we could have a renter move in for free and he fix up the house in lieu of paying rent. That would be perfect for us… it would still cost us every month as we’d have to pay the mortgage, insurance and taxes still… but at least someone would be living in it and fixing it up. But… the last time we tried that the place was destroyed. What the heck is wrong with people today? Sigh…

Maybe we should just sit on the house for the next couple of years and then, when all the kids graduate, we just move up and live in that house. I mean – heck – do you think you could even FIND a home in Tampa for $25k? Or even $45k?? Absolutely not. But then… it’s such a small town. There is a reason people don’t want to live there, right? It snows. They think ‘cow tipping’ is fun. They put pig tongues and feet on the counter at the local Circle K. But then again, the mortgage payment is like $300 a month. I can’t live HERE for that. And… surely the two of us could make enough to cover mortgage and utilities and have enough left over for pretty much anything, right? I dunno……

Well, look at the time. I really have to run.

If you could all please say a prayer for us. Or twenty. That would be great.

"Remember, success is not measured by heights attained but by obstacles overcome. We're going to pass through many obstacles in our lives: good days, bad days. But the successful person will overcome those obstacles and constantly move forward."
-Bruce Jenner-

Lost Cards and Making Money From Nothing

I had one heck-of-a-weekend, let me tell ya. Saturday I decided I was completely and utterly fed up with my hair color and decided to pay to have it done right. I went to a woman who was recommended to me at a local Fantastic Sam’s, and she picked out a color for me that is a little darker than what I had, but not so dark that you look and go “WHAT?”. I like it!

Saturday I did some grocery shopping. Afterwards Kayte had to work, so I let her drive for the first time. She’s in Drivers Ed in school, so I thought “why not?” Well… she isn’t road-ready quite yet. She kept going into the oncoming traffic lane, then would overcompensate and go into the dirt/shoulder on the right hand side of the road. She did do well at 15 mph, but anything faster and she couldn’t keep control of the car. Lesson learned: more time on the range before taking my car again. Later that night we had company over for dinner. Kayte had some friends over and we, of course, invited them to stay for dinner. One – I think – is supposed to be a potential boyfriend. Whenever you hear “he’s just a friend” but they are really interested in what you thought of him… it’s usually a good clue! We also had two other friends of hers over for dinner. I love having lots of kids around the dinner table… it just feels SO rewarding. It helped that it was an awesome dinner: steaks with a sauce/glaze I found a recipe to, baked potatoes, and pecan roasted green beans. Yummy. After dinner the kids went into the hot tub and Chris and I were able to relax for a while.

Sunday we had Church and then Julie came over for the afternoon and dinner. Chris and I decided to run over to AT&T to see if I could get my iPhone a week early. I’ve been waiting for my contract to run out so I can qualify for a discount. Alas… they wouldn’t let me have it a week early, I have to wait until next weekend. While we were out, Julie was going to let Justin drive to the store to pick up some tissues for Kayte’s school and sodas for dinner (I don’t usually have coke in the house, but Julie really likes it for dinner). I gave Julie my debit card and when we returned, Julie and the kids were just getting back. I asked for my debit card – and guess what? She can’t find it. She had JUST used it at CVS… it couldn’t have gone far, right? We called CVS – they didn’t have the card. Looked in her car (new car I might add), and it wasn’t there. Not in her pocket. Not in her purse. Not on a counter. Not in the sofa. It’s just… gone. I decided to run back to CVS to make sure it wasn’t still sitting on the counter and they missed it.

Julie decided to drive so I could check out her new car. She’s driving down the road and the car is LOUD. Really loud. I tell her something is wrong with her car, and she said it was fine. I told her over and over again that something wasn’t right – even to the point where I hung my head out the window to see if a tire was flat. It didn’t make the ‘whomp-whomp-whomp’ noise, but clearly something was wrong with the car. Julie turned up the radio and said it was fine.

At one point on the drive, Julie pointed out that there was a dummie light lit up on her dash and she wanted to know what it was for. It was an exclamation point – I’d never seen it before on another car, so I didn’t know. I said “easy enough… let me get your book”. I open the glove box – no book. She bought the car yesterday, and immediately took the book OUT of the car? Figures.

We get to CVS and I realize that – sure enough – the tire is flat. Great. Must be what the dummie light was on for, I’d imagine. I go inside CVS to ask about my card and Julie said she’d get on the phone with AAA. It was difficult talking to the guy at the counter – Julie was a little loud on the phone with AAA. Actually, it wasn’t even AAA – she was trying to give them the address of where she was when she realized she was on the phone with the operator who still had to give Julie the number to AAA. That was kinda weird, but whatever.

Julie then realizes that she didn’t bring her purse. No purse. No ID. No AAA card. No nutten. Grrrrrreat.

The guy at the CVS counter tells me there was no card turned in. I go outside to call Chris and tell him to please call the bank for me and cancel my card. Now I have to either get off work to go to the bank during office hours and get a temporary card – or wait 7-10 days for a card to come in the mail. Fantastic.

Julie, realizing that she needs her purse for AAA, calls Chris to ask if he’d bring it up to us. He does, but he’s a bit grumpy about it. Lovely.

Julie is still trying to reach AAA, and I tell her that I can certainly change a tire. By the time Chris shows up, I’m just getting the jack under the car. It took me FOREVER to figure out how to get the ding-dang jack out of the trunk. Chris takes over for me though and has it up in no time. Figuring out how to get the ding-dang hubcap off was awful. Chris asked for the book so we could see how to do it without breaking the hubcap. Where is the book? At Julie’s house. Of course.

Well, he gets it off and the lug nuts were on there TIGHT. Chris couldn’t get them off by himself without a big ole’ torque bar that he needed to use for leverage. There would have been no way that I could have done that on my own had he not shown up. That was two times over the weekend he rescued me – Saturday I needed his help at Publix and he came right up.

It’s about then that Julie shares with us why she thinks the tire went flat. Kayte was driving and she kept driving off the road and hit MANY pot holes. Apparently Julie was screaming telling her to stay in the lane… the screaming just made Kayte more upset… and it was probably one of those pot holes – in addition to old tires – that cause the flat tire. The funny thing is – I had TOLD Julie that Kayte was NOT yet “road-ready”. I had told her that she couldn’t keep it between the lines and that she needed more time on the range before driving on the streets again. Regardless, Kayte drove and the flat tire was a result.

Chris and I told Julie that she should talk to Drivetime – telling them that the car she bought YESTERDAY got a flat tire within 24 hours, and that they should replace the tires for her. They were closed, so she ended up taking the car to Tire Kingdom to get a tire put on.

She came back to the house and apologized many times for losing my credit card. I told her over and over again that it was okay. And really – it is. I mean… I’m upset that it happened. I’m frustrated that I have to get another card and give that information to all the people who direct-debit my bank account. We don’t write any checks anymore… we pay everything electronically – so there are going to be a lot of people who try to use the card and can’t. I’m frustrated, but not angry.

As Julie sat there and we talked (Mom came over and we had a nice little chat – the three of us), I realized that Julie is doing absolutely the BEST she can. She’s working – has a job where she sells vacation packages. When she sells one, she makes a small bonus – in addition to being paid $8 an hour hourly rate. She’s lost a lot of weight – 80 lbs to be exact. She’s just “not eating”, she says. I’m certain this can’t be good for her… but at the same time… she really needed to lose weight. The sad thing is that she has lots of hanging skin now. Mom talked to her about seeing if Tricare would pay for skin removal if she ‘lost it all and kept it off’. I can’t imagine this is something Tricare would pay for… but who knows.

The one thing in our conversation with mom that gave me pause was Julie’s boyfriend. It came out that he had some court stuff going on. Now… I don’t really care if you stole something, or if there is some other kind of non-violent crime. What I do worry about is either 1) a violent crime or 2) drug abuse. Either one of these could and would greatly impact my sister. She wouldn’t tell us what exactly happened – I just know he was arrested for having a gun. What he was doing with the gun and why they stopped him I don’t know. Was it used in a crime? Was he just walking around with a gun on him and the police decided to talk to him? I don’t know. I don’t even know his real name to be able to look it up. Needless to say… I worry about my sister given this new information. But she’s a grown woman and is going to do whatever she wants. I am – however – thrilled that the kids can’t go to her house with him there. Obviously there is something to this guy and we don’t know it all.

One thing I forgot to mention… it’s good news for Julie, but makes me shake my head. Remember she hasn’t paid a house payment in well over a year now. When she closed on her house – they sent her a check for $1,200.

Twelve hundred dollars? Really??

How did that happen?

I can’t say that I totally understand it myself. The house sold for less than she owed. She had tremendous debt from not paying her homeowners fees. All of that was wiped clean… and like I said before, I’m thrilled for Julie in that regard. Although she says she didn’t make any money – in my mind, she did profit from the mortgage payments she kept instead of giving to her mortgage company. But that’s all a wash and that’s cool. But… how do you get a $1,200 refund? It was supposed to be something about her homeowners insurance. I just… am flabbergasted. Huh… I don’t think I’ve ever typed that word before. LOL

The good news for Julie is that she was able to take that money and pay off her car and she was able to get a new one from Drivetime. So basically, she’s back on the same footing she was a month ago, before her car was stolen. Except that she has a newer car and no house worries.

Well, Jonathan made it home from New York. His flight was delayed about two hours because of the snow. They were able to take off though and get him home about 11 last night. He was SO happy that he was able to see snow. He had a great time, but was too tired to tell us ALL the stories of his trip.

I should run… it’s 10 and I need to get the kids to bed. I know I usually ask you to say a prayer for us… but tonight, I’d like to ask you to pray for a friend of mine, Jenn. She is having some surgery on Wednesday for breast cancer. She is an amazing woman, a good friend, an excellent teacher (was teacher of the year a few years ago), and a strong Christian. We are praying that she will be cancer free after the surgery.

“Please God, bring healing.” – Exodus 12:13

In Memory, Uncle Bob

I’ve come to realize that I truly miss blogging at work. When I was at work blogging, I’d have time to sit down in a quiet environment, type up a long blog, and think about what I was writing long before I’d hit the ‘publish’ button. When I blog from home, I generally only have a little bit of time – or there is so much going on in the house that I am distracted and I just try to give quick updates.

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Tomorrow morning at 5am we get up to take Jonathan to the airport. Originally Chris was going to bring him, but he’s been working nights changing out store signs at local malls – so I get to take him. Chris is MUCH more of a morning person than I am. Additionally he does better on only a little sleep than I do. If I don’t get at least 7 hours… I’m a walking zombie throughout the day. You can never tell how much sleep Chris has had… he’s just built different I suppose. Anyways, I’ll get home tonight – get him packed – go to bed early – then get up at the crack of dawn and see him off at the airport.

I have to admit I’m terrified of my son being in New York City. It’s SUCH a big place… and he has time nearly every day to go out and explore the city on his own (or rather in small groups with a chaperone). What if he gets lost? What if he loses his money? What if he doesn’t have enough money? What if he’s too cold? What if I forget to pack something?
ARGH!

I know… I shouldn’t worry about him – he’ll be fine. Yeah… I get that. But he’s still my baby, and I’m going to worry about him!

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Speaking of worries – Kayla got a letter in the mail last week. Apparently she applied for a phone with T-Mobile and denied her because of her credit. The reasons given were 1) too many recent inquiries 2) types of credit she had and 3) delinquent credit accounts. Well, she just turned 18 a couple weeks ago… she doesn’t HAVE any delinquent accounts, nor does she have any credit!

My mind immediately remembered when the kids first moved in. We filed their tax return (something Julie never did) and – low and behold – the IRS came back and said someone else was claiming them as dependents. I immediately called Julie who just told me that someone had stolen their social security cards some time ago. Great.

Can I just tell you how HARD it is to get credit information on minors? I tried to get Kayte and Justin’s credit reports for ‘free’ – that once a year thing – but you can’t do that for minors. Then I tried to put them on the fraud notification system, but for some reason they won’t go through and I have to mail all the info into them. So… we’ll see what happens with the two of them. For Kayla, we just requested a copy of her credit report from the free hole-in-the-wall place that denied her. I suppose she will have to pull it from Equifax and the other big-name places… but I haven’t done that yet… I mean – I haven’t helped her with that yet. LOL

I am quite certain that some skuz-bucket that Julie used to hang out with took those social security cards and is using them illegally. Without question. Hell, I know at the very least this person was illegally claiming them as dependents on their tax return.
It just makes me so mad that here these kids are… turned around… doing well… about to enter the adult stage of their life… and their credit is now messed up ALREADY.

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I’m so torn as to what to do with Kayla right now. I want to treat her as a mature young adult. I want to start teaching her the things she’s going to need to know to make it out in the world – such as cooking, balancing her checkbook, etc. But – she is never home.

Every day after school, she hangs out with friends. On Friday she goes to a friend’s house for the entire weekend. I rarely see her, unless it’s on the stairs as she is making her way up to her room. Which… if she was doing great might be one thing. But she’s not.

She’s skipping classes in school. A lot of classes. Get this… I looked at the handbook and you would need to have 5 absences recorded for your parents to be sent a letter. 10 absences and they have a meeting with your parents and the principal to discuss what’s going on. 15 absences and it’s considered “truancy” where legal action can be taken. However… if you show up LATE to class 3 times – you are on in school suspension. After that, it’s out of school suspension for 5 days.

Does that many ANY sense to you? It doesn’t to me either.

Then she got suspended from work for giving away free food. She’s darn lucky she wasn’t fired given the times and how many people would be lined up for her job! Kayla said she cried a lot and told them she’d never do it again, so they just suspended her until this next Monday.

Course, I still need to see her to help teach her to drive as well. Which – the car thing is another problem. Last time she talked to me about it, she said she was getting a car over spring break. But Gwen said she needed $2,000 to get a car. Additionally Kayla isn’t saving enough right now to even pay for gas for a car, never mind insurance or anything else. She now has $100 less in the bank than she had last month at this time. Sigh…

Her not having a car is “not my monkey” as Chris always says. However, her mood swings because she’s miserable for not having one really does become my monkey.

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Julie finally sold her house. The closing is on Friday. The funny thing about this is that – when I asked her how much it sold for, she had NO idea. How do you sell your home, the home that you and your deceased husband had built for your family, and not have any clue how much it sold for? I totally get it that she is happy to be out from under that obligation (they are not going to ask her for any more money), but seriously… how can you not have any idea how much money they are selling the house for?

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Tomorrow morning, after I take Jonathan to the airport at the crack of dawn, I have my first dental appointment in YEARS. I’m talking… a lot of years. I take very good care of my teeth, so I’m not worried about cavities. Maybe I’ll have one, especially since I haven’t been in 10 years or so… but I’m much more concerned about my gums. I brush twice a day. I floss. And yet my gums seem to be receding. I think they are… I know my mom has that same problem, and I’m pretty sure mine are as well. I’ve looked it up online and there are only a couple of options for this… one is surgery. I can’t afford gum surgery. I mean… I don’t WANT it either – but I can’t imagine dumping money into my stupid gums. ARGH. Wish me luck… and I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Remember when I used to tell you that we kept losing all the cordless phones? Well, they are all gone now. The only phones left in the house are the four that have cords. Kitchen, living room, office and our bedroom. The kids use our bedroom phone all the time… it’s easy to lay in our bed and chat all night long. I get that… really I do.

The other night I go to bed. I pulled up the covers and *smack* something hits my knee. Followed by a sprinkle of what felt like little plastic sprinkles all over my legs. I get up to see what on earth it was… toenail clippers. Oh. My. Goodness. That means that the sprinkle was… yeah… toenails. All over my legs and now inside my sheets. YUCK YUCK YUCK.

I remember thinking to myself at the time “Does this kind of thing really happen to other people?” Yeah… I suppose it does.

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It’s now Thursday morning. The plan was to get up at 5am and get ready. At 5:30 I was to drive Jonathan to the airport and hang out with him until his whole group arrived; We were supposed to be there at 6am. I have a dentist appointment at 9… so depending on how long I was at the airport was whether I was going to come home or go straight to the dentist from there.

Well… I had a HORRIBLE night sleep. I was up packing Jon last night, and he was clearly excited. We discussed wake-up time. Usually Jonathan needs a whole hour to get ready but since we were leaving at 5:30, he thought 30 min would do just fine. I went to bed – without Chris who is working at night for the next week or so – about 11:30pm. As I said… I didn’t sleep well. It was one of those nights when you just keep waking up and looking at the clock. 1:30am. 4:00am. 4:20am. 4:35am. The next time I saw the time it read: 5:23am.

WHATTTTTT????? Oversleep today? Forgot to set the alarm – for TODAY?

I run to Jon’s room and he too is asleep. To say he FREAKED out would be a massive understatement. He was very upset. I tried to tell him just to get dressed and we could just leave, but he was still VERY freaked out. He barked at me over and over again, and finally I told him – at 5:35am – that I was not leaving until he calmed his ass down. This just made him more freaked out. Finally Chris woke up and came down and calmed Jonathan down… giving him a hug and telling him that it would be okay. He explained to Jonathan that the plane didn’t actually leave until 7:35am… so he really did have time. And with that we left.

When we got in the car and Jonathan saw the time of 5:38am he said “It’s not after 6:30??” --- The poor kid thought when I woke him up it was actually 6:30 not 5:30.

I dropped him off at the airport and had time to come home. I get home and thought to check the kid’s rooms for some reason. It’s now 6:45am – their bus comes at 6:35 and school starts at 7:10 or so. Laying in the bed sound asleep is Kayla. I ask her if she’s planning on going to school today. (I dunno…maybe she was going to decide to skip the whole day.) She said yes… but ‘nobody woke her up’. Apparently her sister and brother usually wake her up. I told her that she is 18 years old and perfectly capable of setting an alarm and getting up on her own – and that now she needed to find a ride to school. (I assumed one of the many people she’s always out with could take her to school on their way.)
My plan was to lie down for 20 minutes or so… then get up and take a shower… then go to the dentist.

Gosh I hate the dentist.

Sure enough… a knock on the door and Kayla tells me that she needs a ride to school. I guess resting was out of the question for this morning.

I got Kayla off to school, came home, took a shower, and went to the Dentist.

Well, the dentist appointment went MUCH better than I thought it would. Having not been for 10 years or so… I thought for SURE I would have cavities. I know I have gum problems (a receding gum line), and I’ve researched what to do about it – which can entail surgery. I went in expecting them to hit me with a bagillion dollar price-tag for what I needed done… but he told me that my teeth were in excellent shape. No cavities or anything like that. He told me I brush too much/too hard and I needed to stop that (I am a little OCD at times, ya know?) He did not recommend the gum surgery at this time – he recommended I brush less since I’m actually removing enamel when I do it. I’ll need two cleanings – and all 4 of my very, very old fillings have cracks in the teeth – but he recommended we just watch them for now to see what they do down the road. I’m liking that! So I had one of my cleanings today and will go back for the deep cleaning in April sometime.

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I got a very sad phone call today from Julie. She was actually crying, which broke my heart. Julie has not been ‘smart’ about money with things like her house and her car. When her car was stolen recently, we tried to tell her that she should pay off that car and go to a better dealership for a replacement car. Drivetime is charging her a fortune, financing it themselves at a high interest rate, and now they want her to sign something saying that she will only go to Drivetime next time she needs a car. I thought this was ridiculous – she could have a car offered to her from a friend for what she can afford in cash – but she’d be locked in by contract to purchase her next vehicle from Drivetime. Julie’s reasoning is that she will “always have car payments” so why not. In other words… she’s always going to be throwing money into a car… so she might as well pay way too much in the cost of the car and in interest to Drivetime. That just… makes no sense to me.

Well, now Drivetime is telling her that they want her $500 deductible paid as well as $900 for ‘prior damage’. Julie sure as heck DID have prior damage to her car… but I think she hoped it would be covered by the insurance when her car was stolen. Apparently she spent so much money on the rental car, she no longer has $1,400 to give to them to cover the car.

I feel bad for her… but she’s making her choices and has to live with them. It was her choice to be irresponsible by letting a guy that she barely knew into her apartment. Her choice of where to go to get a car – and not caring if she pays too much for it.

Ya know, I was talking to Chris about something. The other day Julie called me about needing a ride to Drivetime. It was Sunday, the day of Jonathan’s birthday. First she wanted to know if I could drive her to Brandon on Monday night, after she finished work. After thinking about it, I knew I couldn’t get from North Tampa at 5pm, to Brandon, and back to Tampa to make it to bible study. I told her I could not bring her there and that she needed to find another ride. This conversation went back and forth for a while – and then she said that she would look into riding the bus.

What you should know about Julie is that – years ago, she would ride the bus EVERYWHERE. Need to go to St. Pete? Julie could tell you how to get there, or figure it out. Brandon – there’s a bus for that too. Julie asked if I would look up the information for the bus and tell her how to get there. My mind went back to all the times she’s asked for this kind of thing recently. If she needed to get to the kid’s school – she would ask me for step-by-step directions on exactly how to get there. Telling her that it’s North on Dale Mabry, North of Ehrlich and just past Northdale on the left – isn’t good enough. Then I remembered what she was like years ago… would go anywhere on the drop of a dime and not need step-by-step instructions.

I asked her if she could look it up, and she said she tried but couldn’t find it. I typed “hart line bus Tampa” into Google and it came up right away. You can just plug in your address, and then the address where you are going, and it tells you what bus to take, times, and what the walking distance is from where the last bus drops you off. But she couldn’t find it when she looked it up? It just didn’t make sense. I realized that… and I don’t mean this to sound mean… she used to be a lot smarter than this. I wondered if the huffing and overdosing all that time really did kill some brain cells. It’s sad to think about that, but – maybe.

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I just got word that my Uncle Bob died. He wasn’t really an uncle, but he was more like and uncle than some of our actual uncles. Mom and dad had best friends up in Massachusetts – Carol and Bob. They had kids around the same time, and when they decided to move away from Mass, they moved together. Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob moved in two doors down from mom and dad. I think if they could have gotten houses next to each other, they certainly would have.

We grew up with love, discipline and friendship from mom and dad, and from Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob. They were my sister Katie’s Godparents. They are good people. Their Daughter Lisa is my age, and their daughter Charmaine is Katie’s age. Although I don’t see them much – Katie and mom still see them all the time. And… I know I can always count of them for anything. They are family.

I remember my dad always drinking. Not Uncle Bob... I don't know why he didn't follow my dad down that dark road... but he didn't - thank God. I remember how we could just walk into their house and it was like being home. I remember Aunt Carol and my mom working together at Maas Brothers. Funny... I don't recall what line of work Uncle Bob was in... I just remember him always being at home.

Sigh......

He’s been very sick lately. Both he and Aunt Carol have not been well. This morning Uncle Bob passed away. I don’t know how he passed… I’m hoping it was in his sleep. I know he was home.

I need to run. I need to gather myself. I’m at work, and I really need to pull myself together. I hoped that blogging would help, but… not yet…….

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Gargantuan Update

Let me start off by talking about my last blog. I didn't intend to get anyone upset... the reason I love living in the USA is because we are ALL allowed to have our own views and opinions and still be friends. With regard to the reader who commented about my quote, citing that I didn't know enough about Rush and his views on women before quoting him... I'm just going to say this: I don't know much of anything about anyone whom I quote. I use the quote because I feel that it pertains to what I am saying or thinking at the moment. Just that simple. He talked about housing... I was (and am still) extremely frustrated about my housing concerns - so I used the quote. Nuff said about that!

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Things at home are going pretty well. Justin and Kayla both got their schedules for their Senior year, and both of them - although completely different - suit what they want to do their senior year.

Justin has mostly honors and AP classes. Kayla has pottery and other fun classes, two 'core classes' that she needs to graduate, and her last two periods of the day are OJT (credit for leaving school and going to work). Both kids are extremely happy.

Justin and Kayte are doing VERY well in school right now. Both are getting mostly A's and B's. Kayla needs to be reminded often to keep her grades up. Jonathan's report card was horrid, and he currently has a D and several C's.

The kids are THRILLED, however, because a friend of ours bought the kids a new computer. The last computer they had completely died earlier this week. It already had a ton of viruses and trojans on it... and Chris and I had decided to just leave it because we couldn't get them all off. But this time the hard drive actually failed.

The new computer they have now has a TON of parental controls. We LOVE it... if they can't get on the internet, we can just block that. Certain websites can be blocked. They can't install ANY programs without our approval. Hopefully these limitations will help them NOT infect this new computer.

Jonathan has been told that if he can keep his grades up, he will be allowed to, once again, play World of Warcraft -- with the understanding that he is NOT allowed to go overboard. We'll see how that works. I'm HOPING that it will motivate him.

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Kayla has been having a bit of a rough time. Julie told me the other day that Kayla got mad at her because Julie wouldn't take her out to dinner. This just SOUNDED odd. Julie called me upset because Kayla was "mad at her", and Julie didn't want her to be mad. Julie only had $20 to last the rest of the month (which, I might add, she got from us) and so Julie couldn't take her out to eat. I thought it was odd that Kayla would be upset with her over this, but Julie didn't want me to talk to Kayla about this.

I left it alone for a couple days, but at one point (when the time seemed right) I asked her why she got upset with her mom. She said that she was upset because when Julie talked to her, she was slurring. I told her that her mom thought it was about dinner, which Kayla said was completely wrong because she can eat anytime at McDonalds for free. We talked about it some more, and I realized that Kayla was very upset with Julie for some reason. According to Kayla, "she was never like this when daddy was alive". I told her that was not true. She wasn't like she was the first year after Ron died... but the way she is right now - doing pretty well, holding a job between hospital visits that are many months apart, although still taking a lot of meds - is exactly like she was when Ron was alive. I reminded her of when Julie shipped them up to Grandma's in Maryland to escape DCF possibly taking them away when they were young. Then how many times we would call up to Maryland and they would all lie about where Julie was - saying she was at the store or something when she was, in fact, in the hospital. Kayla remembers none of it. I remember Julie smoking weed at that time - throughout their young years as a matter of fact. I remember that Julie could never be 100% faithful to Ron when he was away so much. But Kayla doesn't remember any of that... and so she's angry with Julie.

I found a note in which she wrote "Dear Daddy" followed by how upset she was that he died and that her mom 'went crazy' afterwards. Overdosing and sleeping with multiple men. I didn't talk to her about the letter... nor did I read the whole thing completely enough to tell you any more than just that. I think it's good that she's putting her feelings into words. That's what I do here!

Then on Wednesday night, I had dinner almost done. Turkey, stuffing, corn... yummy. Literally 5 minutes before it was ready, Julie called. She asked if she could take Kayla to dinner. I told her I'd have to call her back (which I now remember I never did - oops). I called Kayla down and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner with her mom, or did she want to eat here - it was going to be ready in 5 minutes. She said she wanted to eat here... and so I asked why she told her mom to call me. Kayla said that she didn't tell her to call me - that her mom asked her if she wanted to go to eat, and that Kayla said "sure". According to Julie's story - Kayla said she wanted to go, but that I would never let her go out. (Funny... I so rarely tell her 'no'.) When Julie called I found the whole thing odd because of 1) the understanding that Julie didn't have any money before and 2) I knew Kayla was upset with Julie and I wondered if Kayla just can't talk to her about it.

I told Kayla - if you want to go with your mom, go with her. If you want to eat here, eat here. But just tell your mom one way or the other. She ended up eating with us.

I'm unsure of this whole thing.... I THINK what is happening is that Julie is sensing something is wrong with Kayla, and Julie is trying to do anything she can to make Kayla feel better. I'm not sure what's going on with Kayla on this... she's been VERY self-absorbed lately. But I fear that Julie is going to overdo it trying to make things better. I told Julie... if she's going to get mad at you because you can't take her out to dinner - LET her get mad at you! It's more important that you not overspend on something as silly as dinner when we have so much food at home - the girl is NOT going hungry... let me tell ya!

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Kayla hasn't put money in the bank in 4 weeks. She has actually taken out $250 and then cashed her next paycheck and spent it all. Since she turned 18, she's been quite the party animal... going to Ybor with the girls. She has a TON of new clothes. I looked in her room the other day and there were at LEAST 10 shirts with new tags on them, most cost over $20 each. I didn't even look at the pants that went with them. Some of the shirts were cheap little $6 shirts... but lots were more expensive. Then, of course, there are the new shoes. Just -- trust me when I tell ya that Kayla has spent her money shopping, for sure.

We keep trying to remind her - if she wants a car, she HAS to save. She had over $1,000 when Gwen was here... she has a little over $800 now, 3 weeks later. But -- we are NOT harping on her... I just told her that I wanted to see her meet her OWN goals, and she couldn't do that spending a lot of money.

Ooooooooo.... a big thing here! --- When I went into her room and saw all the new clothes... I thought I would GENTLY talk to her about it. Not chastise her for spending a ton of money, because it IS her money -- but rather -- just tell her that I know she wants a car... and all the pretty clothes in the world are not going to buy her that car. USUALLY what would happen (because we HAVE had this conversation before) is that Kayla would tell me that she didn't buy all the clothes or shoes or whatever. I've told you before that she has probably $1,000 worth of shoes in her closet -- she has told me before that she gets $100 pairs or shoes for $10 which I KNOW can't be right. ** However ** This time, she told me "I know Auntie Tina. I should stop shopping." It wasn't until later when I was just sitting down thinking about it that I realized that she didn't lie to me or hide the fact that she had made these purchases. Last night, I told her about this and let her know that I was proud of her. :o)

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Another problem we had with - and I hate to say her again, but here goes: Kayla - is her going to her bank.

Kayla has always been very flirtatious. When she was younger (16 and 17) I got very upset when she was Myspace friends and talking in the evening (after 10) with her banker. A young, attractive, yet older banker. I told my sister Katie how upset I was (it was another SunTrust bank, and since Katie manages a branch, I talked to her about it).

Now she is 18. Her first check after turning 18... she goes into the bank and passes out her phone number, telling him that she's 18 now and so he could call her.

Katie calls me and tells me that Kayla not only did that, but also her boyfriend usually goes with her and he has severely intimidated the other tellers. Intimidated to the point where he is no longer welcome in their bank. Additionally, this other manager tells Katie, it's inappropriate for her to come into a bank - regardless of her 'legal' age - and use it as a place for her to flirt with people and pick up men. A bank is a professional location, and they deserved better than that. If Kayla couldn't "control herself" they were going to be forced to close her account.

WOW

So... Chris and I talked to Kayla. She said she would do better, but -- she didn't believe that she had done anything wrong. She said her boyfriend was only there once, and that she didn't just give him her phone number... that HE asked her for it. Regretfully, if she doesn't see anything she did as wrong, it'll be hard to change her behavior. I'm just going to let it go and if they close her account, she has to move her money and hopefully then learn a lesson. We'll see.

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Speaking of learning lessons... Justin lost more money. This time, our friend Michelle gave him $50 cash for making honor roll. Justin brings it to the bowling alley where he took it out of his pocket to pay, but a friend told him not to pay, that he would get it. Justin THOUGHT he put it in his pants... but missed - apparently. $50 gone - that fast.

Sigh........... Justin!!!! :o)

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Chris is going away for the weekend. He is driving the bus full of high school kids to a retreat center. Usually our kids don't go on retreats ($100+ per kid = expensive!) - but this time... since Chris is going anyways.... we thought we'd try to sign at least Jonathan up. I almost had him completely signed up, THEN told him about it, and he freaked out!

Valentine's day is Saturday and he wanted to spend it with his girlfriend. Justin wanted to be with his girlfriend as well. Kayte works at Church and I assumed Kayla would never want to go... so -- none of our kids are going with him.

Yeah........... he'll be gone for Valentine's day. But... I think Valentines day is overrated. First of all... most of our marriage we were singing on Valentines day - he in a quartet with guys singing for girls... and me in a quartet with women singing for guys. All day... out making OTHER couples happy. Sometimes we'd meet up... I'd sing for him ~ then he'd sing for me.... it was cute. But we never got into Valentines day ourselves. For us... every day is Valentine's day: you shouldn't wait for that one day a year to show the person you love how much they mean to you.

We've had some good memories doing that. My most memorable was with my mom. We were driving around South Tampa and came to a neighborhood with TONS of cars, vans, catering trucks, TV crews, etc. Mom said "Hmmm... I wonder what all this is about? Let's go see." So - she parked her van and went to see what all the excitement was about.

There we were... four women dressed alike (in red and white) on Valentines Day. We came across a VERY nice yard with cameras and stuff on it. Mom asked someone what was going on and the guy told us that they were shooting a commercial with Joe Namath! Well, mom - being bold - asked if we could sing for him. They said "YES"!

We went on the set, and there he was... the most beautiful blue eyes I've seen (2nd only to my husband of course) and extremely tan. They had these BIG cameras on us... and microphones on these really long poles. Joe smiled the WHOLE time, then thanked us for coming. We had a picture taken with him, and off we went.

I'm sure Chris has his own memorable experiences. I remember him once telling me about the woman who opened the door to her house in a see-through nightie - then invited them IN to sing for her... and she didn't get changed. He said it was a wee bit hard to focus.... I can only imagine. :o)

Anyways, I'm booked tomorrow to do Singing Valentines with a quartet, if we get any orders. We are the last quartet signed up... so we'll see if they get lots of orders. I figured - Chris is out of town... I might as well go out and make some other people happy this Valentine's Day, right?

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Two weeks from now, Jonathan will be on a class trip to New York! Holy moly! How exciting for him!! His school chorus is going, and I'm so happy he is able to go with them. If he's anything like me... he is going to LOVE New York. I went to visit and didn't want to come home.

We just need to come up with a little more cash for his trip and go out and buy him some real winter clothes. I'm going to try Plato's closet first, and if they don't have anything - go to JC Pennys. Hopefully they'll have what he needs. One of the forecasts I saw had now flurries that week. Woooooooooooooooooow!!!!!

We are so blessed that he was able to do this. Some family members chipped in money for his trip... heck, even my boss threw in a little money! I'm sure it's something that he'll remember for a very long time.

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Well, I really should run. I have ANOTHER headache which I need to get rid of quickly. I've been sick for 2 weeks now with a cold and sinus headaches. I'm going to a Robinson High School Happy Hour down in South Tampa tonight. Apparently, tons of friends who went to RHS and are on Facebook have put together a monthly happy hour where anyone who went to RHS is welcome to come. This will be my first one attending (without Chris! BOO HISS!) and I'm really excited to see some old friends.

Sorry for the long time between blogs. I'll really try to be better!

The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops as habit.
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings.

Buddah

Living In A Bubble

Okay, I never - EVER - blog about politics. However, today I simply can't help myself.

We are all struggling. My pay was cut $10,000 a year - my daughter just called me and was told she had two choices: move to part time or take a severance package of 3 weeks pay - it's EVERYWHERE. We are in a recession. And the things our taxpayer money is going towards makes me sick.

It was bad enough the day after Obama was elected that Taxpayer money was now funding abortions. I suppose that means that I may possibly be viewed by God as an accomplice to murder since some of my money is going towards this. This troubles my soul in ways I can't put into words.

Then Obama started talking about the TV Converter Boxes. He said that he wanted the date pushed back because everyone in America wasn't ready for the 'all digital' upgrade. In particular low income people. For this reason, the rest of America, and all of the people who have been preparing for it by getting their boxes or going to cable, have to wait for the upgrade. I was pleased when they announced that the date was going to remain the same. Frankly - I'm sick and tired of seeing the blurb across the bottom of my screen warning me of the upcoming date.

And please don't misunderstand. I'm not a rich person who could care less about the low-income family. I've been that low income family for more years than I care to talk about.

Now, with the new stimulus bill.... $650 MILLION is being given for these stupid converter boxes. Yes... now everyone in that low income bracket will be able to get their converters.

Oh Joy. $650 million of our tax dollars to give low-income families TV.

Tell me........... when did television become a NECESSITY? It has always been a luxury item, hasn't it? I will try to refrain from spouting my thoughts on why Obama is so set on this... but you know he relies on the media to help support him - and if millions of people didn't have TV's - how would they get their Obama fix? That's all I'll say about that.

There were days when, if you wanted to hear what was going on in the news and you couldn't afford a TV, your family huddled around a radio. Some say times then were better. Simple. Happy.

What's next? Are we going to buy TV's for anyone without a TV? Seriously... if the government is now saying that it is a necessity... then surely every family in America is entitled to a TV as well, right? And then... at some point down the road... does cable TV become a necessity? I mean... you do get more stations, such as CNN. So, will the government then start paying for cable if you can't afford it? Where does it end?

Entitlement is a problem right now. Everyone is entitled to so many things.

I'm furious that my pay is going down and the government is spending all this money on STUPID shit.

They already gave the banks tons of money in an effort to allow more American's the opportunity to get better rates on their mortgages. Wasn't that the reason for the huge checks - millions of dollars (or was it billions? I forget...) written to banks?

Well, for two months now I've been trying to refinance my home with 5.5% interest, because the government says I should be able to. The banks are giving me all kinds of hassles. I pay every single bill on time. I have VERY little credit card debt. I have a steady job and make decent money, as does Chris. Heck, the kids we are raising get SS and VA benefits. And yet.... I've been jumping through hoops for months. The woman doing the paperwork just told me "The guidelines have changed drastically and it takes a lot more to get things done."

Isn't the purpose of lowering the interest rate so that my payment goes down... so when they cut my pay 20% I can still afford to live in our family home? Isn't the government decreasing the federal rate to ZERO in an effort to 'get credit flowing'? Given ALL of this, shouldn't this be easy?

Oh, and also on CNN.... "Uncle Sam Wants To Sell You A Car". Really? Who can afford a car payment right now? They have a "cash for clunkers" program floating around right now... where you turn in your car that is paid for and buy a new car - they give you a rebate check of some sort. But still... you then have monthly payments on a vehicle. I consider myself blessed to have every car we own paid for. I'm buying generic everything to save cash - Uncle Sam thinks I can afford a new car?

Are politicians living in a bubble? TV's are no longer a luxury but something every American should have. Abortions are funded by tax dollars. They give money to the banks without a promise from the banks of sharing that with their customers. And now everyone - in a recession - needs to buy a new car. And this is just a start to the madness.

Sorry about a political blog here... but I'm just so frustrated. Thanks for listening. :o)

"You could afford a house without the government if it weren't for the government."
Rush Limbaugh

Answered Prayers

Julie and I went to court this morning for Julie's request of unsupervised visits. The more I think about it... I believe that the outcome was the best thing for the kids.

We went to court at 9:30 this morning and waited a LONG time. When we went in, Julie stated that she had been out of the hospital for a 10 month period of time and that she deserved unsupervised visits. He asked me how I felt about it and I told him that I agreed that she certainly could have unsupervised visits. I explained that there were many times that I - or any family member - could tell when Julie was not well... and that during those times... she shouldn't be able to take them. But when she is doing well... she could be just fine with them. The district attorney did a GREAT job of saying what it was that I was feeling. She told the judge that she recommended that Julie be given unsupervised visits at my complete discretion.

One thing that was kind of weird is that Julie told the judge that Justin was 17 and Kayte was 16. They are not... Justin is 16 and Kayte is 15. Sure... they have a birthday later this year, but when he asked how old they were now... she said they were older. I told the judge their actual ages and that their birthdays were in late June. I think she did that so that the kids would seem older in the judges eyes, but I don't know exactly why.

We then talked about some difficult stuff. The Doctor from Hillsborough Kids stated that he had concerns after reading Julie's discharge summary from her recent bakers act in Tampa General. In that summary he said that, among other things, Julie would self medicate. We then explained to the judge what her mental conditions were. I also told him that my other concern that I wanted to mention was that - even when she was doing well, she didn't think and rationalize consequences of her actions as an adult. Not because she was being mean or hard-headed, but often times she just isn't capable of that level of reasoning.

There were two times when I thought the judge was going to stop and not allow any visitations what-so-ever... one when I told him about her lack of reasoning skills and two when he heard what was in her discharge paperwork from TGH.

The funny thing is... what I prayed would happen is that I would give my opinion, Julie give her opinion, and the judge takes all of that and makes a determination that is solely based on the best interest of the kids. I now believe that is exactly what happened.

Julie is allowed to see the kids unsupervised for a maximum of 3 hours, however, she is never allowed to drive with them and she must have her visits in a public place. Julie nor I were expecting these stipulations. Julie at one point said "Sir, I am a very good driver." The judge just replied "I don't care, with the amount of medication you take, you are not driving with the kids." When he talked about the public place, Julie was very upset. She really wanted to take the kids back to her apartment. The judge just said no... that she had to take them someplace public such as the mall, a park, the movies, McDonald's, the Zoo, etc. Julie said she didn't have money to take them to those kinds of places, and he named several places, such as a park, that she could take the kids to for free.

I've been pretty shocked about the outcome all day. However, I now think that this was the answer to my prayers. The judge certainly didn't do exactly what I wanted him to do... he took the information and did what he thought best.

So, that was our day in court.

The kid's grandma and grandpa (Ron's mom and dad) came down this last weekend. It was a great visit... Friday we had dinner at Olive Garden - 20 family members for Kayla's birthday. Gwen decided not to get Kayla a car just yet. We found out the insurance was going to be very expensive and Kayla really needs to save up for that. Saturday Gwen took Kayla to try to get her license, but the place was closed so they all went to the mall. We had dinner Saturday night - 10 of us around the table. The on Sunday my mom came over and we had a late lunch (11 of us). It was a busy weekend, but I know the kids loved seeing Gwen and Coley.

Chris has been working SO HARD, it's unreal. He left for work at 8pm on Sunday night and worked all night and all the next day and came home about 10pm on Monday. He looked HORRIBLE when he got home... dragging tail for sure. Tuesday morning he was back out at the crack of dawn and didn't get home again until after 10pm. He did the same thing today and will be working again until late tonight. Poor guy. Although he LOVES what he is doing. He's standing in as the General Contractor on a remodel of a big chain bookstore. It's only a week of work - a very LONG week with long hours - but he's enjoying it. If nothing else, he absolutely knows he wants to get his license to become a contractor. I'm great with that, as long as he doesn't always work those long hours. I miss him!

My chorus is going SUPER well. I joined and was made tenor section leader immediately. I love that... the respect I get from the section and leaders of the chorus. We were just riser placed... which is a really big deal in our chorus. My FAVORITE spot is in the middle of the chorus with the three other parts around me - no other Tenors. I was a little worried they wouldn't put me in the middle. They usually put the tenors in little 'pods' on the sides, but they have done that before and just put me in the middle, which was AWESOME. We have another tenor in the chorus who has WON an international quartet contest as a tenor... so surely she'd go there. Well, they put her in the middle - as well as me. We have a bass singing between us, and I'm surrounded by all three other parts - LOVE it. I'm trying to deal with the fact that I am going to pick and choose what competitions I go to... like - I'm not going to go to Regional competition in April, but I am going to the International competition in October. I just love singing with them and feel so blessed to be a part of the group.

Well, I should run for tonight. I have to start dinner, take Kayte to work at church, then pick her up and bring her to her school, and somewhere in there finish cooking dinner and eat. Need to get started now to get done in time.

Thank you all for your prayers! It means the world!

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens."
-Lewis L. Dunnington-

Live The Questions

I have so much to get off my chest, I don't even know where to start.

Let's start after my last blog... with all the things that have helped me feel like I'm going insane the past two weeks.

On Sunday, 1/4, we all knew Julie was a little depressed. She kept to herself... didn't say much. Heck, Justin had even asked her to please not go home and hurt herself. Julie seemed pretty 'clear'... she didn't seem to be on anything... but she wasn't quite right.

Mom, I found out later, had also talked to Julie sometime on Sunday. Mom knew she was depressed and told her that she should go to the hospital. (We can't ever fool mom... she knows how I'm feeling just talking to me on the phone!) Julie told her that IF she ever did decide to go to the hospital, she wouldn't tell anyone. Monday afternoon mom calls me and asks me if I'd heard from Julie all day. I had not. Her cell phone was going directly to voice mail, so we knew it was off. Nobody was answering at home. I went to bed Monday night afraid that Julie was dead on her apartment floor. I thought about going over there to check on her... but I was afraid to do that. I figured if she was still 'missing' on Tuesday afternoon... we'd call the police and file a report - they could then go look for her at her apartment.

Later on Tuesday I finally hear that Julie did go into the hospital. She was depressed and the doctor sent her to Tampa General ER. The ER said her levels were off and they Bakers Acted her to take care of it. She was there until Friday, the 9th.

Julie can say all she wants to that she should be able to go into a hospital and not tell anyone and none of us should worry... but the amount of times she's overdosed and tried to kill herself - we certainly DO worry. If we didn't worry, that would mean we've given up on her... and we haven't done that.

So, she's in the hospital... and the first person / family member that she calls to notify that she is in the psych unit is who? Justin... of course. Not an adult. Justin. Amazing.

So... the rest of my week that week, as you saw from my last blog, was full of teenage drama. Chris was out of town and I was just up to my eyeballs in it. Nuff said about that.

Sunday Julie comes back over to visit - this would be the 11th, 2 days after she gets out of the hospital. I was going to make sloppy joes for dinner, but Julie really wanted my chicken alfredo, so I went to the grocery store and we had - of course - the chicken alfredo. At one point, I was making dinner and Julie was in the kitchen and we were talking about Justin. Julie talked about how she wanted Justin to take care of her when he grew up. I asked her "don't you want him to grow up, go to college, get married and have kids?" She responded by telling me that he HAD to take care of her... "what else am I supposed to do?" she asked. I continued to try to tell her that she needed to not pressure Justin into thinking this way... but she was really quiet so I left it alone after a little while.

At one point on Sunday she lifted up her shirt and I could see fresh cut marks on her stomach.... many of them. I assume she did this earlier in the week when she was either going to or in the hospital. She told me they were not new, which was funny given the fact that it had blood on it still... but she also gave me that 'look' telling me that of course they were new. So sad....

On Monday I think it was, she has a one-night-stand with some guy she really didn't even know. She wakes up on Monday morning to her phone ringing. It's the landlord telling her that her front door to her apartment was open. At first Julie didn't tell us anything about the guy that was with her. Her story at first was that she went to bed with the apartment door unlocked and when she got up, she found her keys and car missing. We found out later in the day that when she woke up, her keys were gone, her car was gone... as was the guy that she didn't really know. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Julie did file a police report... which was really good for her. She did tell them all about the guy who was with her the night before, so now they are looking for him and her car.

On Tuesday, Julie's boyfriend - that I hear she has known for 10 days, doesn't work, doesn't own a car, and receives a disability check every month - tells her that he wants to "go steady" as Julie puts it. He wants to move in and take care of her. She moves him in immediately and - although she says he's going to help her with rent... no specific dollar figure was discussed nor the date it would be paid. I just thought it was funny that she was with some guy on Monday, then Tuesday moves her 'boyfriend' into the apartment.

I can't say that I'm surprised. Julie has been labeled a 'sex addict' - although what I really think is that she needs love and physical attention very badly. My sister Katie was WAY more upset about this than I was. Katie grilled her on everything (as only a sister would do!) - and was shocked to hear that she was doing all of this unprotected. Julie's response: "I was tested last year, and I'm a good person, so nothing will happen to me." Utterly amazing. My mom too was very upset. Funny thing is that I think I was the least upset of the three of us in this instance. Of course, I worry about her, and I certainly worry about the kids if they were to be able to go over there and hang out with these people. I mean, if the guy moved in that day... he obviously wasn't under a lease somewhere else... which means he's living with someone else now - not on his own - at the age of 48.

Then there is the rental car / her car deal. She got a rental car deal from someplace by the airport... but had no way to get there. Then she had to pay a week in full to get the deal (if they find her car tomorrow... she's out of luck for insurance reimbursement). My sister Katie was talking to Julie about looking for a job (she didn't get her job back at Walmart). Katie told her that she needed to look for something around her house that she could walk to. Julie asked why she'd need to walk... and Katie replied that - if they didn't find her car, she'd have no vehicle. Julie thought she could use insurance money to buy herself a new car. But the car she's driving isn't paid off... and she's most likely upside down. It's more likely that they'll pay off some of her car loan and Julie will still have a payment due to the bank for the car. Julie never thought she'd have to pay off the loan if the car was stolen. I don't know how she'd think this... but she did.

Earlier this week I got a phone call from a Doctor from "Family Matters". He is the guy who will be making a recommendation to the courts as to what to do about Julie's motion to have unsupervised visits. We talked for a long while... I explained to him about how I had already allowed her to have some unsupervised visits when she was doing well. I told him that Julie actually stated that it could be used against me in court. He said it wouldn't. He knew that she had been Bakers Acted and that she was discharged on the 9th. He started off by telling me that Julie needed to have completed her case plan. If she didn't do that - then they would throw the whole thing out of court to begin with. Then with the new Baker's Act... well... he wasn't sure how it would look.

I told him this about that: Although I do not appreciate how she went into the hospital (not telling anyone and the family worried sick about her) - I told him that I thought it was extremely important that she DID go in when she needed help. I explained that she has many mental health issues that would never go away. The rest of her life, she'll have ups and downs... and that she needed to go to the hospital at certain times. Penalizing her for this was not 'right' in my opinion. Julie already has it in her head that when she goes to the hospital it's "bad". As her sister, I don't WANT her to think that way... I want her to seek help the very day that she realizes that she needs help - not feel like she has to hide it. The courts could determine whether or not Julie is well enough to have the kids unsupervised given her mental conditions... but please don't use the bakers act alone as any kind of reason.

He talked about the possibility of having Julie have unsupervised visits only when I deem it appropriate. I know that will be really hard because there are many times when Julie is slurring and she SWEARS that she is okay. This is going to put me in the role of being the 'bad guy'... and I totally HATE that. But if it's the only way this can happen for her, and what the court wants... of course I'd do it.

He explained to me that the courts view me - as the permanent guardian - the "parent". And that they usually take the views of the "parent" in these cases. I explained that I honestly didn't know what was best. I think that when she IS well, she's okay to take them for certain things. But at the same time still doesn't always think things through completely... so I don't know. I explained EVERYTHING to him and think that he really got the way I feel.

Other news: Jonathan tried out for the talent show at Gaither. He played a song he wrote on the piano... and then his quartet sang a song called "Moondance". He made the talent show for BOTH things! Amazing... he is SO TALENTED!

I have to run as I'm really not feeling all that well. I want to leave you with something I heard on... of all places... the Ellen Degeneres show. A Doctor who is apparently really well known came on to share some new year resolutions with everyone and he said the most profound thing that I loved - I had to write it down.

Live The Questions:
Focus less on consumption and more on relationships.
What do I find important?
Who am I?
What do I want?
How can I be a good friend?
What gives me meaning and purpose?
What are the things I look for in a relationship?
Live the questions and you won't need to worry about the answers.

Today

Today might be the lowest I've felt in the three years since the kids moved in. I feel sad. I feel beaten. I feel like there is no hope for some things.

It's a long story about last night... and I'm not going to blog about it now. I want to because I want to explain how I'm feeling, but I'll try without getting into last night.

First of all, I got a blog comment from my daughter. She didn't understand that the last blog was really about more than the kids not going to bed when "I" tell them to. There are many reasons for the 10 PM bedtime - the most important being that they have school the next morning. But it wasn't about the 'time'... it was about how they don't listen to me. About them trying to justify somehow and to some extent talking back. All of THAT is the underlying problem. So... I don't think the appropriate motherly thing for me to do is 'relax'.

Chris is gone... and I am a horribly leniant disciplianarian. Something happened yesterday and I punished one of the kids - wait... I'm going to get into what happened and I said I wasn't going to do that. Sigh.....

I feel horrible today. I feel weak and beaten. I am up before 9 on a Saturday because I have to go into work this morning so they can finish installing the carpet in the office. What I want to do is go back to bed and cry the rest of the day.

Please say a prayer for me. Thanks.

Bedtime Struggles - Yet Again!

Yes... it's back-to-school time after the long (and I mean REALLY long) Christmas break - which means the kids have set bedtimes again. Of course, they hate having a bedtime so they give me a hard time about it - which means I get to vent about it here. :o)

Chris has been gone all week, which leaves me home to take care of everything that needs to be done after work. Last night I took Justin to physical therapy, dropped Kayte off at work, went home to start dinner, left again to pick up Justin, home to continue cooking dinner, Church to pick up Kayte from work, then home to eat... all between 5:30 and 8:00. Fun stuff....

First of all... I absolutely hate being responsible for getting Kayte to work 3 - 4 times a week. I know that might sound awful... but... I do. We didn't take Kayla to work this much - why Kayte? Kayla didn't mind walking to work when she needed to. Kayte's job at the church is 1.7 miles from our house... she totally could walk this or ride a bike. But she said... if we make her do so - she will just quit. Sigh.... Last night she told me that she has training at work on Friday from 6 - 9.... so any plans I had for the evening are now out of the question - unless I make her find some other way to get to work. I hate doing that because then she asks the mom of her friend Michelle, who lives quite a distance from our house and the church. This mom always takes Kayte when she asks... Kayte told me last night that her mom 'doesn't mind driving all the time for her'. Well... EVERYONE minds spending a lot of money on gas nowadays, don't they? I think what I'll do is... when she turns 16 in June tell her she must find another job within walking distance of the house so she can get there herself.

So... the bedtime stuff....

Remember the bedtime rule now? 9:30 they turn off all electronics and get ready for bed (which seems to take them forever), then at 10 they are to be IN bed.

Well, at 9:30 I tell the kids to get off the computer and off the video games. Kayla was on the computer and Justin was on the video game. I went back to check on them just before 10 and they were both still on. I told them to get off and get up to bed. Justin was 'just finishing' a game. Kayla got off and went upstairs. At a little after 10:05 I go in there and Justin is STILL on the video game. He tells me that he's in the middle of a football game and can't get off. I said not to start a game so late... he said he started it at 9:00 or so. I told him I didn't care and he needed to get off. He again said 'just a minute'.

I then went into the computer room and rebooted the router. Of course, this booted him from his game right away and he was none-to-happy, let me tell ya. Oh well....

I then went upstairs at 11 to go to bed myself and I can hear Justin talking and I see their bedroom light on. I go in there and Kayte is putting on pajamas and Justin is sitting on his bed, which is still completely made up.

I of course 'went off' on both of them. Kayte says, in her sweet yet attorney voice "but I had to put my pajamas on!". I told her she SHOULD have done so over an HOUR ago. Justin tells me "Auntie Tina, I AM in bed!" I looked at him... sitting there fully dressed, ice pack on his knee, sitting UP in bed. I told him that "in bed" meant like he was going to sleep.

I asked these two why I ALWAYS have to come in there and talk to them. They are always talking, washing their faces, putting on pj's, sorting clothes, etc - after bedtime. LONG after bedtime. Perhaps we needed to separate them. (They HATED hearing this) I told them we could always turn the downstairs game room back into a bedroom like it was for Grandpa and Justin could sleep down there.

Again Justin tells me that he's okay because he "is in bed". I looked at him and said "can you sleep like that?" He looks at me confused and said that he guesses so. I told him - fine... sit up all night long and sleep in THAT position. Do NOT lay down! If this was what "in bed" looked like... I wanted to SEE him sleep like that.

Sigh..............

Oh, and Julie called last night and is getting out of the hospital on Friday. She thought it was completely wrong for me or mom to be worried about her the other day... saying that she should be able to go somewhere for a while and us not have to check up on her all the time. Whatever... she should be happy that she has family that loves and cares about her.

I'm supposed to be going to Choir tonight, but Kayla keeps messing up my night. She wanted to have her boyfriend come over tonight... so I planned a roast. I got it all ready to go this morning and it's in a pan waiting to be cooked now. Then she called and told me that I never told her it was okay for him to come over - which is wrong, we had a long conversation about it... I would cook dinner, she would make brownies... etc. Okay - I figure we'll just have the roast without him. But she asks if her friend Jessica can come over and eat with us. I tell her that's fine... we'll have plenty anyways.... dinner would be ready about 7:00 or or 7:30 I figure. I hang up the phone with her and literally 2 minutes later I get a text message - she now wants to go to the school basketball game tonight. No, I didn't plan my night around you. Twice. Cancel choir... started cooking this morning.

Kids.... make me crazy sometimes.

Now... Jonathan is at school for quartet practice and I have to pick him up after work. At 5:30 he has piano practice. I need to continue working on dinner, and then figure out what I'm going to do about Kayla. Pick Jono up at 6. Hopefully dinner will be ready by 7 or 7:30 if I can get my act together quickly enough.

Oie.

Hurry home Chris! :o)

I should run.... need to finish up some stuff before I dive into my evening. Thanks for listening to my ranting today!

That which does not kill you makes you stronger. - Neitzsche

Quick Update

I'm headed out to chorus in a few minutes... but I did want to try to get in a quick post.

Julie is in the hospital and didn't want anyone to know.

I hadn't heard from her since yesterday afternoon. Julie and I had actually had a bit of an argument. She called me and told me that we should really talk about what's going to happen in court about the unsupervised visits so we could get on the same page. I agree with that, and in many aspects: I liked what she said. She talked about how she didn't want to just be able to take them 'whenever' but rather, on Sundays if she wanted to go to the mall with them... she could. I like that idea to some extent, but again - only if she is in a good condition to do so. I was working and both bosses were in the office (our first day back at work after being off for nearly 2 weeks... so we were rather busy). I told Julie I really couldn't talk much about it now and said something about the courts would, I'm sure, do what's best. This I think got her a bit upset.

She then started telling me "Tina, there are things that I'M SURE you wouldn't want to come up in court."

What?????

She continued on with telling me that it 'could come out' that I got drunk the other night. Saturday night we had a family get together at the beach. Chris and I rented a room so that - if we did drink... we did not drive. I had wine... actually no more than I would usually have at an all-day event - but I didn't eat much. I had two small hot dogs for an early dinner with a very small amount of chips... and I think it just wasn't enough in my tummy. ANYWAYS... she's thinking I wouldn't want them to know I drank.

Whatever.... I told her that I would be happy to tell them myself. I have nothing to hide.

Then she said "well, you wouldn't want them to know that you allowed me to take the kids when you weren't supposed to". I can't even believe she had the balls to say it - let alone that she would try to use that AGAINST me.

I told her that I had no problems telling them all about it. While we were at it... we could talk about how those visits went. How DARE SHE try to do that to me!!

I was livid. She actually tried to blackmail me? WHAT??? I told her we could talk about it later that night, after 6:30 as Justin had physical therapy that I had to bring him to.

Mom called me last night and told me she was worried about her. She hadn't heard from her yet (nor had I) and that her cell phone was going right to voice mail. Mom thought she had gone into a hospital, checked herself into a mental unit.

To say the next few hours were upsetting would be an understatement. I went to bed wondering if my sister was unconscious on her bedroom floor due to an overdose. Or maybe she did go to a hospital. I didn't know.... I didn't sleep much.

Today I thought - if we can't find her by late this afternoon, we'll call the police and file a missing person's report. They'll find her that way, I'm sure. Well, we found out that she IS in a hospital. She had told mom "If I do go into a hospital, I'm not going to tell anyone", and sure as heck - she didn't. As a result we were all worried sick.

The funny thing is... I'm not really angry with her about this. I'm actually HAPPY that she went into a hospital because she felt she needed it. I'm just upset that she did it and purposely didn't tell anyone. I am still angry, however, about her phone call to me yesterday afternoon.

I believe now that mom, my sister Katie and I are all on the same page now as far as unsupervised visits. We all realize that Julie is not the best judge of when she's 'okay' or 'not okay'. Someone else has to be able to tell her 'no' if she calls slurring and wants to pick up the kids. The only one who doesn't realize it is Julie.

She's probably really upset because she did so good for so long.... but as I've said before, she will always have mental problems, and will always be an addict. She will have GOOD days, and she will have BAD days. I want nothing more than for Julie's 'good days' to be spent with her kids. Someone just has to tell us how to make that happen.

I should really run... I've got to get dressed for chorus. I suppose at some point while I'm back I'll go all grungy and stuff... but for now... I enjoy getting dressed nice and putting on make up to hang out with the girls all night.

Please everyone... say a prayer for Julie. Thanks!

Nuts For Christmas

I've been so busy I honestly haven't had time to blog. There is so much going on... I'll fill you in on the big things.

First things first: to those who get emails when I post a blog: Please know that it is NOT working very well right now. I've noticed I post blogs and then I don't get the email telling me a new one is posted. If any of you have a better application I could use instead of the Feedblitz, please let me know and I'll be happy to try it.

My boss decided to give me the $10,000 per year pay cut, but I told him I wanted my hours cut 20% as well. He wanted me to sign something saying that I would stay until April - but with that he would give me a larger year-end bonus. I disagreed with that, telling him that any year-end bonus I get is what I earned and should NOT be tied to the time that I work in 2009. We agreed that I wouldn't have to sign anything, but the bonus will be significantly less. This gives me the freedom to continue to look for a job now, without having to promise him I'd stay until April. If the 'perfect' job comes up in March, I'm able to take it.

Cutting our living expenses over $800 a month will be extremely difficult. Eating out and getting my nails done are things we are going to have to cut out for a while. We'll go from there and see what else we can cut. It's going to hurt - sure - but given the economy, I'm just going to have to do what I can.

The house here has been busy with kids anticipating Christmas and doing their own shopping. Kayte and Kayla both have jobs so they have been out buying their own presents. We decorated for Christmas and got a small Christmas tree for the living room. We got one small enough this year so that we didn't need to move any furniture.

The kids are doing pretty well. With the exception of Jonathan and his grades in school. He is going to actually make an F on this report card. Frustrating. Additionally, Kayla will have at least one D on hers. Neither of them seem to care much about their grades - unlike Kayte and Justin who care a great deal about what they make in school.

Oh - here's a great story. Remember the girl who was having letters sent to our house? Her boyfriend was in a court-ordered rehab facility and he didn't want the girlfriend's mom finding the letters, so he had them sent to OUR house? Well, one Sunday night about a week and a half ago, the doorbell rings. It's a woman about my age, and her son who is 22. Apparently this girlfriend had run away from home and the last place she was seen was MY house, as the brother dropped her off here on Saturday morning.

When I found out who she was, I asked her if she knew where her daughter's boyfriend was. Now... I knew that he was locked up in the facility, that he was going to get out on weekends, and that their 'cover story' that they were going to tell her mom was that he was in New York (so that the mom didn't know where he really was). She responded with "He's in New York" and then asked why I asked. I took a deep breath, walked outside (where she was) shut the door behind me, and began to tell her all I knew about the letters, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend.

She was at our house for a good hour I'd say. We discovered that the boyfriend HAD been in town, but had to go back to the facility on Sunday afternoon. We tried to find out where she was, but none of her friends were helpful at all. We finally told her that, since her daughter had been missing for more than 24 hours, she should call the police and report her. It was about this time Julie made her way downstairs and asked me if I was still cooking dinner and if so, when it would be ready. I laughed at her immaturity and felt a little sad that she could not empathize with this mom at all. I mean... I'd never had a runaway child... but I can at least show some empathy towards her in the midst of her crisis.

They ended up finding her later that night over a friend's house. I did, indeed, make dinner after the mom left.... in case you were wondering. LOL

Other news is Julie. She reads these blogs and I know she's going to be upset... but here goes.

She has been good for a while - since February, her last severe overdose. Julie decided to get some surgery done on her hand. She was having some numbness in two of her fingers, so she went to a doctor who told her at her first visit she needed surgery. I don't get that and I know I've blogged about my feelings on the whole thing: no second opinion, no trial of other things prior to surgery - but whatever. Julie decided to do it just before Christmas.

Mom tried to talk her out of it - explaining that she would lose her job and would get pain medicine over Christmas. For a person who lost her husband, lost custody of her children, is mentally ill (bipolar with borderline personality disorder), who is a cutter and who often overdoses on whatever she can get her hands on.... to start pain pills and have surgery over Christmas seemed like horrible timing. Myself and my other sister felt that Julie probably just... 'needed' to go to the hospital. It's hard to explain but - if you go to the hospital and get medical treatment that often... sometimes it feels like it's 'needed'. I saw it often when I worked in the medical field.

Julie's visits have been really good in the recent past. Then, after the surgery, she started acting a bit odd. Her first visit was.... well.... funny. She was EXTREMELY loving - planting a big wet kiss on me and telling me how much she loves me while hugging me hard. She was talkative and even a little outgoing. Like I said - it was funny - and yet I was thrilled that she wasn't slurring so badly that we couldn't understand her - a giant fear which I had when I knew she was going in for surgery and being discharged with medication. But, Julie said that she asked them NOT to give her Percocet because she knew she 'liked it' too much and would abuse it - they gave her Vicoden instead. That's really good.

On Wednesday night we had a family get-together at my house with Julie, Katie and family, Amanda and Gene, Michelle, Evie, Jimmie and Danny. At last year's get together of the same group - Julie showed up bleeding with over 50 self-inflicted gashes across her stomach. (Not to even mention the ones on her arms) I have to admit, I thought about that a LOT and was hoping and praying that this year would be better.

Julie showed up that evening, and the first thing she did was chastise me for telling mom she was 'loopy' at her last visit. Well.... she WAS... but I explained to her how I felt she was so much different in this 'loopy' versus the other pain pills. As she spoke to me, she was slurring her words badly, and getting progressively worse. Before long, she was COMPLETELY out of it.

By the time Amanda and Gene arrived, Julie was sitting on the sofa, yelling simple words which made no sense. She's yell for Gene, multiple times, then not have anything to say... stumbling over words that made no sense when put together.

We kept asking her what she took... and how much she took... not knowing if she had overdosed - but she SURE was on something. She kept saying that she "only took one pill". Everyone in the house (which was everyone who was coming at this point) knew she was lying. I'd seen her several times after taking one Vicoden... this was NOTHING like that. She became agitated when everyone kept asking how much she took... and her kids (Kayla, Justin and Kayte) were getting VERY upset. They hadn't seen their mom this bad in a very long time.

My sister Katie took charge and told Julie that she was NOT going to ruin this Christmas party for everyone else and that Julie was going to bed. At first Julie refused, trying to say she was "fine"... but Katie insisted and told her to get upstairs and 'sleep it off'. As Julie got up from the sofa it was apparent that she was now unable to even walk on her own (she went downhill very quickly) -and so Katie and Chris both helped Julie upstairs. She almost fell down the stairs once, but Chris guided her and helped her keep her balance.

The next few hours were wonderful - spending time with my mother and father in law... Danny... Gene (who I rarely get to see because he works so much) and Amanda. Michelle who has become like a second mother to the kids. Katie and her kids looked fantastic and having the little kids in the house made the whole evening energized. There really is nothing like watching kids at the age of 5 and 1 rip open presents, happy with whatever is packed inside... heck, sometimes just thrilled to see a box!

We had tried to wake Julie up for the presents being opened, but she just wouldn't wake up. Three or four hours later, she made her way downstairs. I fully expected that she had slept off much of whatever she took, but she didn't - she was still EXTREMELY bad. Watching her try to look at photos taken on the camera... she'd hold up the camera to look at it, then her head would fall back and she'd fall asleep sitting up and she'd drop the camera. Then she'd repeat the same thing a dozen times or so. I kept asking her what she had taken. Finally she admitted that she had taken an extra strength Soma along with the pain pill. She claimed her surgeon gave her both.

Why would the surgeon give a very powerful muscle relaxer? That didn't make sense. Additionally... if she thought enough to tell him she can't have Percocet (she didn't tell HIM why, just told him she didn't want the Percocet) - then why did she take the Soma when she knows that she gets equally addicted to that pill? I told her that I felt we should call the doctor because -- perhaps she was having some kind of allergic reaction. The whole time I said this... I knew it wasn't a reaction -- everyone knew she had taken too much of something, and it sure as heck wasn't one or even two pills.

Her kids were now extremely agitated... Kayla wanting to call 911, Justin and Kayte not wanting to look at her. At one point, with Julie sitting on the sofa and the three kids there, Justin said "maybe she really did just take one pill and she's just tired". Everyone looked at him... and I looked that poor baby in the eye and said "Justin... look at her. Do you honestly believe she's 'just tired'?" Of course, he said no. But in that poor boy's heart he wanted so badly to believe it.

Julie kept wanting to leave and I knew I couldn't let her drive in her condition. I was going to let her sleep over, but the kids wanted no part of that - and I was going to respect their wishes. My options were to call 911 and have her evaluated - or to drive her home. Chris, Michelle and I decided to drive her home.

I have to admit that at one point I thought: if Julie had unsupervised visits, and she was in THIS condition... would she drive the kids somewhere? I thought about video taping her in this condition to show the court, or heck - to even show Julie later, what she looked like in this horrible condition. But I decided out of love and respect not to do that.

The next day Julie was calling and apologizing. She texted the kids multiple times asking for forgiveness. I think all of us were thinking the same thing: WHY would you do this before a party? The kids and I are in different places about the incident: the kids were mad, I try to be compassionate as I understand it's part of her mental illness - and to some degree, she can't control some of the things she does.

Julie later admitted that the hand surgeon is not the one who gave her the Soma - which just means that she's getting medication from multiple doctors and taking them how she sees fit. Not good... and I hope and pray that she's learned from it.

Christmas day Julie came over again. This time she didn't take ANYTHING but Advil or something like that for pain. She was a completely different person. My mom came over and -- heck -- at one point Julie got up and was doing karaoke with us! Too funny.

Our Christmas, none-the-less, was wonderful. We spent time together, shared the good times with our family and loved ones, and even though at times there was drama, everything worked out in the end.

I do hope that all of you had a blessed Christmas and that you kept in mind the entire time the REAL meaning of Christmas. The birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. One of my favorite Christmas decorations in my house is the "Kneeling Santa". It brings both worlds together, with Santa, hat in hands, kneeling over the baby Jesus in a straw bed. It reminds me so often of the true meaning of Christmas.

KNEELING SANTA PRAYER

The sleigh was was all packed, the reindeer were fed,

But Santa still knelt by the side of his bed,

"Dear Father, " he prayed, "Be with me tonight.

There's much work to do and my schedule is tight.

My sack will hold toys to grant all kids' wishes.

The supply will be endless like the loaves and the fishes.

I can do all these things, Lord, only through You.

I just need your blessing, then it's easy to do.

I do this only to honor the birth of the One,

That was sent to redeem us, Your most Holy Son.

So to all of my friends, lest Your glory I rob,

Please, Lord, remind them who gave me this job.

Job Decisions

Sorry I've been so long without a blog. It's been a CRAZY week.

Justin is home resting. He had surgery on Friday to repair his torn ACL. He has been in a great deal of pain, and even ran a low grade fever for a couple of days, although today said he was doing much better. He'll be going to school tomorrow. I need to wake up EARLY to do this, get home, then turn around and get ready for work. I am NOT a morning person, so I'm not really looking forward to it, but - you gotta do what you gotta do. Right now he can't climb the steps to get on the bus, so I'll need to drive him for a while. At least until he has physical therapy enough to where he can make his way up the stairs on the bus.

Everything with Kayla is still the same. She's been.... "good" to me - nice and all - I'm just not sure how long that will last. I hate to say that.. But I honestly didn't know what happened last time, so I'm a bit leery. Right now she's going out with her friends every night that she's not working. As long as she tells me where she is going, how she's getting there and getting home, and she's not out too late, I'm letting her go.

Kayte is doing great. She loves working at the church, and I know it's really good for her. It's just hard knowing that 3 - 4 days a week I've got to plan on driving her and picking her up. Many times there are conflicts, like this Wednesday when Justin has his physical therapy appointment at 6, and Kayte is supposed to be at church at 6 the same night. Thank goodness her friend works with her and has an ANGEL of a mom who picks Kayte up often

Jonathan is still in his on and off funk. He had a stack of clothes in his room probably three feet high, and I just can't motivate him to do ANYTHING, he'd rather lay in his messy room and do nothing. Yet other times he is just witty and fun. I dunno...

I read the most interesting article in the paper last week that I really wanted to blog about.

You know how often times I tell you that the kids do things that are kind of bad, but they say they are better than their friends. Like Kayla telling me that her 2.something GPA wasn't all that bad because all her friends had worse GPA's. It's frustrating to make an argument to that.

An article in the paper (associated press) discussed how students today lie, cheat and steal, but say they are better than most of the people they know. They referenced a study they did of nearly 30,000 students in randomly selected high schools nationwide, both public and private. 64 percent of students cheated on tests, 35 percent have stolen from a store in the past year, 1 out of 5 had stolen from a friend and 23 percent stole something from a parent or other relative. It discussed the lowering of ethical standards in America and how we all let kids get away with it. And the stunning statistic that followed: 93 percent of students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character and said that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."

I was talking to Chris about this and Jonathan was in the car. Jonathan told me that HIS school just did a study as well and found that 75 percent of kids in his school cheat.

What's happening to kids? Where did we go wrong?

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I have been job hunting for so long without any responses and finally got a call for an interview. The position was for Front Office Manager for a cosmetic dentist in Temple Terrace.

I went to the interview, only to open the door and see 8 other people in the waiting room holding job applications.

Great.. A mass interview.

Well, they hand me the paperwork to fill out the job application. The first page was extremely odd. It stated that the doctor was a member of Christian Scientology, and that - although they didn't deal with 'religion' really at work, the entire office is run off Scientology principals and teachings by L. Ron Hubbard.

Obviously - I , being a devout Christian, did not get the job.

And for more bad news: my boss told me his 'plans' for me after the first of the year. I can keep my job, and they will lower my pay to what I was making when I was originally hired years ago ($10,000 less a year than what I make now.) However, he will give me an end of year bonus IF I agree to sign a contract stating that I will stay with them until the end of April.

April is when they are planning to move the office to a location closer to their homes (they build a year or two ago, one in New Port Richey and one in Dunedin). The new location will be in the Safety Harbor area... About 25 minutes drive with no traffic.

The thing I have to think about after April is can I afford to drive a 12 year old car that far every day for much less pay. Increase in gas as well as wear and tear on the old car.

I don't think it's 'legal' that they just decrease my pay - I think they technically have to fire then rehire me in at a lower rate. But am I going to comp lain about that little part of it? No... Because I am really forced to take the job, there just isn't anything else out there. What I have to think about is this: Do I want to be locked in until April? What is a better job come along and they want me to start in February or March? And... What expenses can I cut to make up for the $10,000 loss in income.

The part that really bothers me (other than working the same for much less pay) is that he wants to only give me a bonus for 2008 IF I agree to work until April of 2009 because they 'can't afford to lose me'. Well, a BONUS is something I earned from doing a kick-ass job in 2008! It shouldn't be tied to my staying at all.

It's a lot to think about. I've got to talk to Chris when he gets home from Pensacola.

I'm really trying not to stress about it. God has a plan, right? Right.

The funny thing is that I feel guilty for NOT feeling guilty about being back in Toast of Tampa, regardless of the lower pay. I just LOVE being back and singing that Barbershop harmony.

Speaking of TOT, they asked me to be a section leader my second week back as a member. How cool is that? I was honored to be asked. The difference between this time and last time I was a member though is pretty remarkable. This time family comes first... Like today Tony asked section leaders, if they could, to please be there at 6 tomorrow to go over a new song. I wrote him immediately and told him that Chris was out of town and my first priority was taking care of Justin after his first day back at school... And I might even be late.

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Oh, and it's 17 days before Christmas. 24 days till my job drastically changes and my pay lowers. No stress... No pressure.

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I had that big event that I blogged about last week and asked for prayers about. I guess you could say that I 'hit it out of the park' - the event went off without a problem.

It was a chipping /putting contest first with an open bar. I should mention here that I got a hole in one o n the chipping part - the ONLY hole in one on that hole! We then had dinner and gave out awards. Many of the principals told my boss what a great asset I was... "the heart and soul of the company". It was an awesome time and Chris learned a LOT about how power plants work!

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I just realized I should apologize if this blog is scattered or if there are horrible spelling errors. Chris took our laptop with him, and at home we have the one laptop I could us that we 'gave' the kids to use... But it's full of viruses and horrible to type on (I keep typing then losing entire paragraphs). We also have the computer that Paul from church gave to me a while back, but it got a virus (KIDS!!!!) and we need to reload windows and all that stuff, but don't own a copy of windows or whatever it is needed to wipe it clean and start over. It's been a low priority since I got my own laptop. :o) So I'm sitting here on my PHONE with a little bluetooth keyboard typing.

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Please keep Justin in your prayers and pray for my job - that I'll be able to see God's plan and that I'll trust it.

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"Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom." - Ecclesiastes 9:10

Completely Blessed

We are completely and utterly blessed.

Chris has several jobs which he's been given by a contractor that should take him into January. The work he's getting is,without a doubt, given as a blessing. Well, I mean a lot of it has to do with the fact that he's an awesome worker and does a fantastic job. But additionally, he's getting this job through a friend from our bible study group. At a time when the housing market and economy are so bad, the jobs he is getting are for commercial work. It's just a complete blessing at a time of year that is usually very scary to us.

We have Christmas decorations up at the house... but nothing outside and no tree as of yet. We also made lots and lots of Christmas cookies. Yummy!

Kayla, Chris, Julie and I all had a talk last Sunday. Actually, Chris started talking to Julie, and eventually Kayla came in the room. Chris did a good job of talking to her without getting emotional about it. First he chastised Julie about working on this with Kayla without talking to us. Then with Kayla, he basically told her that he honestly believed that her moving out now, before she finished high school, would be a mistake. He talked about the obvious pitfalls: changing schools, perhaps not being able to start a new school because she's be over 18, Julie's very small apartment, having someone there to help her if her car broke down, and other things that would be harder for her. But he did a good job of just telling her how we felt.

I got the opportunity to tell her that I was really upset that she was telling everyone that she and I were fighting all the time - when we weren't. At first she said that we DID fight all the time, but when I asked her to tell me of ONE time, she couldn't think of anything. She then told me that she was very upset with me because I wouldn't let her go to parties. I asked WHAT parties (because we rarely tell Kayla 'no'). She said that there was this one time that she asked if she could go to a party and apparently I said no. She never asked again, just assumed I'd say 'no' to any future parties. We then had a long talk about what was a party, what 'happens' at parties, and about our general rule: as long as we know where she is going, who she is going with, how she's getting there and getting home, and when she'll be home... all is good.

I can't say that I know what Kayla has planned for when she turns 18, but I do know that I feel better after talking to her and getting it all out in the open.

I have been swamped at work. This week we have a big event here in the power industry called "PowerGen". It's in Orlando every other year, and so every other year we plan a big event. Monday is a big golf day - 18 rounds of golf with the big-wigs of all the companies we represent. Then on Wednesday a chipping/putting contest, dinner and awards ceremony. I'm in charge of running this whole event, and have put it together with no real problems. However we have some big things going on here at the office which have made this quite problematic.

First, I may have told you in a prior blog, but one of my bosses - Steve - is in the reserves. He's been called to Active Duty and is to report in February. He's really trying to get out of it because he has some medical problems... but we'll see how all that goes.

Then there is my other boss, David. He's been having neck/shoulder problems for a week or so which started after he was golfing one weekend. Come to find out, he's got some ruptured vertebrae or something to that effect... he's going to need spinal surgery this week to fix it. This means he can't go to Orlando with us to give out awards, golf, do the dinner or anything! OIE

So, guess who is going to have to pick up the slack? Yepper... me. I now have a script to read when passing out awards. (We award the principals who gave us the most commission every year.) Thank goodness Chris is going with me because I think I'll be a nervous wreck. My boss rented a hotel room for us Wednesday night so we didn't have to drive back at midnight... which was nice.

All this stuff is happening at my work, and -- all the while -- I don't know what's going to happen with me in January 2009. Are my hours cut? My pay? I'm still looking for a job like crazy - but nobody - and I mean NOBODY is calling back. It sure seems to ME like a really bad time for them to cut me to part time and therefore lose me. But... I don't know what the plan is. And now with David out, I don't know how or when I'm going to get to ask him!

Geez

Okay... on to more wonderful stuff!

So I told you that Jonathan is doing horrible in school, right? Middle of the 9 weeks and he was failing 3 classes. You look in his book bag and it's HORRIBLE... papers everywhere, not in folders - his whole life from school just scattered in a book bag.

Well, I got tired of it.

Across the hall from my office is Gail Myers of Myers Tutoring. She is always SO NICE to me, and she has a beautiful office, so I went over there to ask her if she could help me somehow. She offered to give him 'organizational classes' -- for FREE!

Amazing!

We went to meet with her on Sunday and she was awesome. She looked at all the papers in his book bag and saw that his papers that were graded had good grades. In a matter of minutes she figured out that he was a "global learner". She asked how he was doing in math... he said he was doing okay, but didn't understand imaginary numbers... it didn't make sense to him. She said that she LOVED imaginary numbers and she showed him how to do them in a way that made complete sense to him. She was doing problems on the board (a really cool 'smart' board!) and at one time Jonathan corrected her answer.

She then told him that she would try to help him get organized, stay organized and get better grades, so that HE will have more FREE time.

I told her about how he didn't ever want to do his Notebook in World History because it's only 4% of his grade. He said it took up too much time to put the notebook together for that little of a grade, so he'd rather just not do it. I see a zero and freak out! Gail explained to me that - because he was a global thinker/learner - this made total sense to him and to her. But, she said and looked right at Jonathan, that means the rest of your grades have to be good enough to allow you to miss that notebook assignment.

She suggested we get him a pendflex - which is an idea he hated. But she told him to just give it a try and see how he does with it. Chris picked one up today so we'll see how he does with it.

Justin is going in for surgery on Friday. I feel kinda bad that I'm not going to be there the day of his surgery, I have to work. But Chris and Michelle will both be there, and I'll see him when I get out of work. Please keep him in your prayers!

Julie is supposed to be having surgery on her hand for a carpal tunnel type injury on December 19th. I have mixed feelings about this surgery... on one hand, if she's uncomfortable (tingling in two fingers) and they can do surgery to fix it - great. On the other hand, she'll be off work through Christmas (bad time of year) and she'll miss a lot of work - who's to say in this economy that she'll have a job to come back to? And let me tell ya... it's HARD getting a job right now anywhere. Plus I can't imagine them just doing surgery right off... not trying anything else first. But anyways... she's having surgery on the 19th so keep her in your thoughts and prayers as well.

"We love Him because He first loved us." 1 John 4:9-10

Wonderfulizing Your Day

I can't believe how hard it is to find a job right now. *sigh* I have applied EVERYWHERE, hospitals, offices, monster.com, craigslist, heck - yesterday I applied for a job as a manager of Chuck-E-Cheese! Yes... I'm that desperate right now.

The good news is that my boss told me that they are not moving the office until April, and that he thought we could 'work something out' about my pay. But... I don't want a pay cut at all. I am PHENOMENAL at what I do... if anything, I'm underpaid. Additionally I can't AFFORD a pay cut. So -- I keep looking, hoping that the 'perfect' job will be waiting.

I'm also trying to get my sister Katie to get me an interview at Sun Trust. Kayte makes good money managing a Sun Trust. The funny thing is, how little she knows about computers and such. She's a good 'manager' but not so good in the office. Heck, she had to call me to ask me how to spell her job title for business cards! (I love you Katie!!) Whenever she needs something done on the computer or she needs something written, she'll ask me for help. Of course I help because I LOVE doing that kind of thing.

Katie said she talked to the head of H.R. the other day and actually told the woman that I should have HER job because I'm so good at it. Actually, Katie underestimates some of her strengths... she's very good with employees... something she's better at than I. Anyways, the HR manager told her to send my resume to her and maybe after the first of the year they'd have something open up for me. That would be really great!

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Kayla and I have talked very briefly. She called me to get onto me about taking away her mom's unsupervised visits. She told me it wasn't fair for me to do that to Julie when this was about her and me. I told her that the reason I took Julie's unsupervised visits away was because she showed extremely poor judgment in not coming to talk to me. I also explained to Kayla how I went into this knowing if Julie ever did ANYTHING that made me pause and question her intent or mental ability, I would HAVE to do this. The court order said she's not allowed to see them or talk to them unless I am within eye and earshot - I'm not punishing anyone - I'm following the court order.



I also was able to express my hurt feelings to Kayla in this conversation. I told her that what hurt me the most was that she had been telling everyone that she and I are "fighting all the time" when it just wasn't true. I asked her to name ONE time that she and I argued. She recalled a time last weekend when I cursed at her in the car (the time she was baiting me for a fight... sat in the back seat all the way to Church and kept laughing at me). I told her that the fight she was talking about was AFTER the phone call from Grandma Gwen... after she had gone around telling everyone that we were fighting. I asked her to tell me ONE time prior to that in which she and I argued or fought. She - of course - couldn't recall anything.

I told Kayla that if she wanted to move out just because she wanted to be on her own when she was 18, that's one thing. But to leave in a funk - telling everyone lies so that she'd feel more justified in leaving --- that was something else entirely. She can't do that... tell everyone all those lies... and then expect me not to be upset with her.

And... why Julie? Julie's apartment is TINY. (Oh, Julie tells me that she is NOT getting a new, 2 bedroom apartment until her lease is up) There are only a few reasons that I can think of: 1) Kayla just wants to go somewhere that she can do anything she wants to do without any rules. 2) Julie is lonely and wants someone to come live with her just to keep her company. 3) Kayla has issues with Chris and myself that she hasn't expressed to us. Any one of these three reasons isn't a good reason to get up and leave your brother, sister, high school, etc. Now Julie is going to help her with college applications? Julie who didn't finish high school and can't pass a GED exam? Really??

Regardless, Kayla is leaving and I've accepted it. I don't like it, but I've accepted it.

I still pray often for God to help me with taking the emotion out of it. To just let God do His thing, and me not get upset or emotional about it. It's working, but I still struggle at times.

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Jonathan is not doing well in school at all. He is failing at least 3 classes right now. He's grounded, not playing any games, no computer, and no cell phone. Yet... he's still unorganized and not motivated to get good grades. We have an appointment next week to discuss with the doctor - see about changing his medicine. Maybe that will help. Can't hurt!

It's funny because he's doing SO WELL in other areas... not stuck on the computer, more interactive at home, does and says funny things, plays piano often. He's just a pleasure to be around. But then... try to get him to do homework, wash clothes or pick up his room and it becomes a different story.

I don't think it's just him being a teenager - because teenagers usually WANT to do whatever they need to do to get off restriction. So... we'll see.

The other odd thing about Jonathan that I've never blogged about (it came up in therapy the other day) is how particular he is at SOME things. For example... in the morning when he has cereal, he goes through the ENTIRE spoon drawer looking for the perfect spoon. No spots, no smudges, nothing - has to be perfect. The same thing with cups/glasses... he looks for imperfections in the glass, fingerprints, smudges, whatever - and won't use it if it's not perfect. He's VERY much rigid with routines, in particular in the morning. He won't wear something unless it's COMPLETELY clean and ironed. If the shirt has a spot on it, he won't wear it.

Yet... his room is completely and utterly TRASHED. You can't walk on his floor without stepping on clothes or other things. When he eats in the game room or office, he'll just leave everything there. There have been times when I've found 4-5 glasses sitting on the desk and lots of bowls, spoons, etc... all over the floor. It's odd how his is so particular about some things, but not others. Course, I think it just makes him very interesting.

Funny - after just writing about what a pleasure he is to be around at home right now, he just threw a massive fit. One of his teachers was supposed to have uploaded his grade from an F to a D. He said... er... yelled... "I've been working my a** off all week to get my grade up, and she didn't fix it?" Slamming things around... just pure ANGRY. Sigh....

Pray that the medication change next week will help him, please!


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Panic is beginning to set in for Christmas.

I went to the mall last Saturday to pick up a couple tops for work and a choir performance we're having and the prices of things began to hit me.

Little Kayte went with us and showed me what she liked -- all pretty expensive. She's a "Hollister" kind of girl. LOL

We burned through all of our savings the past few months thanks to a tanking housing market. Course, then there's the broken tooth and the Durango broken down a few times that also hurt a bit. OIE! Course, the looming reality that the week after Christmas my monthly pay goes way down.

I figure I've got the four kids, Amanda (who now lives really close and spends more time here), and of course Julie - I'm sure they will all be here for Christmas. P-A-N-I-C. How am I going to get anything? Will what I can afford be enough? Sigh... I know it will be. The kids are really good and just happy to get anything.

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It's funny how much I realize, by blogging, that I hate it when I don't know things. I am unsure about my job in January. My pay come January. If we can do Christmas presents. Not knowing or understanding why Kayla is moving out. If Chris's business is going to be okay in this horrible recession we are in.

When I blog, I get to go back and read it and remind myself that God is in control. That He will do a much better job of things than I would and I just need to have faith.

No doubt I should blog more, even if things with the kids aren't completely chaotic - if for no other reason than to remind myself that it's all going to be okay. Because I have been a emotional/mental mess as of late - full of worry.

So, I'll leave it to God. I'll ask you for prayers. And I'll try to keep remembering that God has a plan.

Speaking of thinking positive; Chris sent this to me a few weeks ago. I thought this would be a good time to share it. Enjoy:

==============================

Try Wonderfulizing. It's.....Wonderful!

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Let's talk about how we spend our time thinking when we are alone not engaging with others. Much of the time we are thinking about events that might happen in the future or digging up the past.


When we think about the future, the tendency is to feel anxious, worry, or become uptight. When we look to the past, we often feel regret, sadness, or guilt over past deeds.


Neither one of these thinking tendencies appear to be useful. Instead, why don't you try practicing "wonderfulizing." This is the practice of creating stories in your head that have happy endings. Where the internal events of the stories are full of healthy exchanges and positive interactions.


All of your characters get what they want, and sometimes even more than they would ever imagine. Since it is a story about the future, we know it has no basis in reality, it is fiction. But it is fiction with a happy ending UNLIKE the fiction you create when you awfulize or catastrophize when you become uptight about an upcoming speech, confronting a dear friend,or beginning to play a "big" game.


These stories are also fictional, but they have unhappy endings. If both are fictional or irrational, I say choose wonderfulizing. You will enjoy the experience much more, and who knows, you may get more than you ever imagined.

Get Out Of God's Way

To say that I am angry with Julie right now would be a huge understatement. I found out she's going behind my back - lying to me or at the very least keeping things from me.

Remember the problem with Kayla? Well... Julie has been working with Kayla for a while now, telling her that she could just move in with her. She's even getting a 2 bedroom apartment - THAT is how much she has been working on this.

My sister Katie told me about it. Kayte and Justin sat down and talked to me about it. Seems everyone knew about it but me. Kayte and Justin actually told me that they hated it that they were doing this and I was going to be the 'last to know'. I was told that Kayla has been calling around playing the "I hate it here" card, seeing what she can get out of anyone. I guess I should expect it of a 17 year old... it wasn't too long ago that my daughter Amanda was in the same boat. But I did expect Julie to respond differently.

I was so angry that she was doing all this behind my back that I wrote her and told her that the trial run she had with unsupervised visits was now over. She's going behind my back first of all, which is immature and unacceptable. You would think that when Kayla talked to her and told her how we are always fighting and she is miserable and hates it here - Julie would have encouraged her to TALK to me. Then, a mature adult would have come and talked to me about the situation. Instead she just made plans to move her in.

If I can't trust her - if I can't trust what she is saying to the kids is a mature and appropriate conversation - then she shouldn't be able to take them unsupervised. What other inappropriate conversations is she having? Is she going to undermine me all the time? So from now on, she gets her once a week visit and that's it. Supervised - within eye and earshot at all times, just like the judge said.

Then -- early this morning she called my mom. Mom is in Hawaii, 5 hours behind us. Julie called mom at 5 am Hawaii time to ask her what MY address was. Mom didn't have it -- so Julie called our sister Katie. Katie asked her why she needed it and Julie said that she couldn't tell her because if she did... Katie would tell ME, and she didn't want that. Katie finally got it out of her -- she... no... "they" (so I assume it was her and Arthur) were at the courthouse. She was there to file paperwork to get unsupervised visits. Well, Katie didn't have my address and Julie ended up having to call me to get it.

Of course, I'm going to fight it. We'll let the courts decide.

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Things with the kids otherwise are going okay.

Kayla still isn't even talking to me, but I think she is doing okay. I'm trying to be as nice as I can.

Kayte is working at the church watching kids in the nursery. She now works four nights a week.

Justin is doing SO well in school. His surgery is scheduled for December 5th.

Jonathan isn't doing well at all in school - but his personality is phenomenal. He's much more fun around the house... playing games, active, playing with friends. It's really great.

I talked to Chris about the discipline in the house. He's agreed to take the responsibility of dishing out punishment. After checking grades and checking cell phone use, we found that Jonathan's grades were really bad and that Jonathan, Kayla and Kayte are all using their phones to text long after 10 pm. So tonight we sat Jonathan down and talked to him about how we WANT him to do better... but he MUST bring up his grades. We took his cell phone until he brings his grades up to at least a C. Then we took Kayte's cell phone when she went to bed so she couldn't text, telling her that she could get it back in the morning.

I have faith that it's all going to work out. I really do. Even the Kayla thing... if/when she moves out in January, we'll give each kid a bedroom - Kayte and Justin won't have to share a room anymore. Everything will work out. God has a plan.

I was at bible study Monday night and a friend said a really neat prayer that I have been using all week. He said that his prayer was to "take the emotion out of the situation. Get out of God's way." How perfect is that? I've been saying that over and over to myself ever since.

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Chris had a birthday yesterday - birthday #41. I was off for the day and we went to Busch Gardens for the day. We have year passes, so it was a beautiful way to spend the day. It was SO NEAT - we got to feed Giraffes! It was really a unique experience.

Then that night we all went to dinner, all 6 of us, which is unbelievably rare. Chris's mom and Jimmie joined us way up north at a place called Rapscallions. It was really nice, and really cool to have everyone together out to eat.

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I am exhausted after a long day at work and home. I should run for the evening. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. I know God is listening!

Believe while others...
By William Arthur Ward

Believe while others are doubting.
Plan while others are playing.
Study while others are sleeping.
Decide while others are delaying.
Prepare while others are daydreaming.
Begin while others are procrastinating.
Work while others are wishing.
Save while others are wasting.
Listen while others are talking.
Smile while others are frowning.
Commend while others are criticizing.
Persist while others are quitting.

Teenager Troubles

For anyone who subscribes to my blog via feedblitz, it didn't send the last blog - so you might want to go check it out.

Tonight I'm still in a knot about the kids. Kayla in particular. We had a really bad night tonight. Things between us haven't been good for a while. Our communication is horrible, she doesn't talk to me, she lies to me about silly little things as well as important things. And I just HATE it.

I don't even know what happened tonight. Gwen had told me that she was going to hold off on getting Kayla a car. Kayla fully believed that at Christmas Gwen was coming down to buy her a car. Since Gwen told her that she's going to fully pay for the car, regardless of how much money she saved, as well as the insurance she'll need for the car - Kayla just hasn't been saving as much, she puts aside $100 or so every paycheck, but sometimes she just keeps the whole thing. Plus - Kayla will have a car, insurance, and not be able to drive. She hasn't taken drivers ed - and I've driven with her... she needs to practice more. She isn't home enough for us to teach her, as I think I said in the last blog.

Tonight, apparently Kayla called Gwen and I found her in her room crying quite a bit. Now Kayla tells me that she is going to get her car from Gwen. But she called Gwen just when we were sitting down for dinner. We called her to come to the table, and called her, and called her. She ignored us (she said she didn't hear us, but our house is NOT that big). Chris yelled at her for not coming to the table -- we ended up eating the entire dinner without her as she never did come down to dinner.

Later I took the kids to a goodbye party for their youth leader. On the way there, they 'baited me' into arguing with them. Justin thought I should let him listen to whatever kind of music he wants to. (I just had him take off a song he had on his Myspace that said words like "Fuc*" and "Motherfuc*er" ALL the time.) He said that he should be able to listen to whatever he wants to. That his Auntie Katie thought the song was fine and he couldn't understand why I didn't think it was okay. She listens to the same music and she's just fine. I tried telling him 'because I said so', especially because we have talked about this same thing over and over and over and over again. But Kayla sat in the back seat snickering at every thing I said. Drove me nuts, and I ended up yelling at her telling her to stop laughing at me. It was just............ horrible.

Now she's putting on her myspace that she "can't wait" and that she is "DONE fighting with this family."

I feel broken inside. I feel so sad when she is hurt or angry or unhappy. Yet I know she is struggling with this desire to be albe to do anything she wants to do.

Please pray for our relationship.

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Julie had her visit today. She hasn't been to Church with us in.... jeez... I don't know how long. Course I've missed a few weeks here and there as well. She came over about 11:30 and took Kayte and Justin to her house until about 6.

I was home making dinner when she called and said she couldn't come over for dinner because Arthur needed her. Apparently he doesn't have a car and needed someone to take him to the hospital. I guess I'm going to keep my mouth shut about how I feel about him not being able to take himself - but suffice to say I wasn't happy about making a big dinner and her canceling out at the last minute.

I guess it just added to my horrible day.

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I don't have a lot of energy to go into things too much tonight. I'm just writing to ask you to please pray for us. Pray for our family.... for Kayla.... and for me. I need to find a place of happiness even when the kids are -- acting like tough teenagers. Thanks.

Parental Funk

I'm in a funk. I feel like a horrible parent who has no control over her teenagers.

Report cards came in yesterday. First up... Kayla, who got a D in math. Kayte and Justin each got one C, and Jonathan got 4 C's. Here's my problem -- the 'consequence' for not making honor roll for Justin, Kayte and Kayla was for them to lose their phones until they DID make honor roll. However, Kayla has already told us she'd just go out and get another cell phone from Metro PCS and pay for it herself. We don't want that... we want to be able to know when she's on the phone at 2am, ya know? So... we told her that she could, instead, just pay HER portion of the cell phone bill.

However, how unfair is that to Kayte and Justin? To add to the unfairness, Jonathan wasn't given the cell phone and warned against not making honor roll... he NEVER makes honor roll. Instead he was given a phone to put in appointments and reminders. However, lately he uses his cell phone mostly for texting and talking. How can we take away their phones when Kayla and Jonathan are able to keep theirs? Heck, Kayte and Justin's report cards were BETTER than Kayla's and Jonathan's.

It's easy to say "just take all the phones away".... but.... I'm having a really hard time with it. First of all... you have to LIVE in the teenage hormone hell that we are in to know that having FOUR unhappy teenagers is going to be an awful living environment for the next 2 nine weeks. Second, I'm not a good disciplinarian, Chris is. But Chris has backed WAY off of disciplining since the big thing with Jonathan, when Jonathan started going to counseling - and that has worked to help mend the relationship between the two of them. Yet... they are all now getting away with everything. In the past, Chris would get all over the kids for doing poorly, and I'd allow it when needed and pull him back if I felt he was being unfair. Now... it's just on me.

The funny thing is that all 4 of them feel that the grades they received were, for one reason or another, "not really their fault". I suppose that's a teenager thing... but they need to own up to their grades - they earned them. Kayla's just not good in math, so it's not really her fault. Kayte had a 79.6 and the teacher, she feels, should have rounded up her grade. Jonathan isn't allowed to make up the work or for whatever reason he just can't do it. Justin was using somebody else's locker and his workbook was stolen out of the locker, allowing several zeros to bring down his grade. So.... nobody here is taking blame.

Well, I wouldn't say nobody... I'm taking all the blame. I'm a horrible parent. I feel that way anyways.

Then there is this current 9 weeks, which we are now 3 weeks into. Of the few grades that are posted, Kayla has one F, Jonathan has 2 F's. F's???????? Yeah.... F's. Both of them say not to worry, that they will bring them up. But ya know... last week I had that conference with Kayla's teacher last week, and just today I got a call from one of Jonathan's teachers. She noted that he was 'just not the same' the past week or so in math. Not doing assignments, not taking notes, not bringing his book, etc. Today she had to stand him up in the back of the class as a discipline method. Sigh..........

The funny thing about that is -- since the computer was taken away from Jonathan... he's been a pretty GREAT kid at home. He's outside playing, going to the park, hanging out with friends... it's been like a dream come true. All the kids have noticed it as well. I expected him to do as Kayla does when she doesn't get her way.... go in his room and sleep all day. But he hasn't.

I'm also worried about Kayla and the people she's hanging out with - still. I know I've mentioned it as a concern before. Kayla isn't really 'doing' anything wrong at home, but I just feel it... I just know it.... she's headed in the wrong direction. For example - one of her friends, Anne, has a boyfriend who was just "locked up" and is now in a treatment facility. Well... the guy wanted to send letters to Anne, but he and Anne didn't want Anne's mom to find out. They planned on lying to her mother when he got "passes" to come home. Their plan was to tell the mom that he was in New York. Well, he's now sent 5 letters to my house. First of all, I have a problem with Kayla giving out our address to a guy who is locked up. Chris is a retired corrections officer... we do NOT want our address known by those people. Second... this guy is NASTY in his emails. He talks about how he wants her to have his "jit"(his baby), and that if they didn't 'do it' last time, they would work on it more when he got out. He says that she should know how much he loves her because if he didn't he would have worn a condom. EWW! Oh, and he best part... not only does he smoke weed, he SELLS IT. He wrote one letter to a guy who he used to smoke with and sell with. In that letter he told the guy that he should get his grades better, focus on school for a little while, and THEN he could start "burning" (smoking weed) again. Great advice, huh? Yeah... these people, these friends of hers, are really going places, ya think?

I can't get her to see it. She thinks her friends are misunderstood. And... if I can't help her see it, then doesn't it again make me a bad parent? Again, I strike out. Fail. Sigh....

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Okay, that's pretty sad up there. Let me start telling you some good news.

Justin got a note from his teacher. He did an essay where he was asked to interview a teacher then write about it. Well, he did and in his essay he talked about how he never realized how difficult their jobs were. (Sucking up to the teachers I'd guess, but it worked!) The teacher gave him back the essay and wrote this on it:

"Justin,
This is the bet essay in all of my classes. Excellent job - you were clear, precise & creative. Thanks! :o)
P.S. - Out of 60+ papers, you were the ONLY one to get a 100% and one of the only people who deserved / received an "A". I'm SO PROUD of you! :o)"

Good stuff, huh? Of course, essay writing that these kids do is NOT what we used to have to do. The teachers, even English teachers (which was the case in this paper) didn't grade based on spelling. Kids today are ALLOWED to spell things wrong, and even not have them corrected. Teachers today feel that it's more important that kids learn to express themselves than spelling correctly. I disagree, thinking they are not going to get very far in the corporate world if they can't spell correctly. But... I'm not a teacher, and I have to trust that they know what they are doing.

Anyways, we are SO PROUD of Justin for this note from the teacher - I didn't mean to imply I wasn't when I talked about the spelling.

Speaking of Justin -- he had the MRI and saw the Orthopedic guys at USF -- he definitely has a complete tear of his ACL. Additionally he may have something wrong with his meniscus... but they can't tell for sure on the MRI. He is scheduled for surgery on 12/5/08. It was weird hearing them talk about how they were going to fix it: they were going to try to use some of his hamstring but they were going to have a cadaver part on-hand just in case they can't use his.

It was difficult scheduling this surgery for the 5th and not wait for December 12th. I'm off on Dec. 12th and would love to be there for him. It's outpatient surgery, but still... would love to be there for him. Working alone... it's not so easy to get additional days off - so Chris is going to take him. It's MORE important that he get the surgery quickly... they say that the sooner he has it done, the better and shorter his recovery will be. (There I go again, feeling like a horrible parent!)

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OMG... I'm sitting at my desk typing this and a SPIDER just walked across my chest/shirt. I think I bruised myself slapping the HECK out of it. I'm DEATHLY afraid of spiders. Usually I can't even MOVE when I see them... but to see it walking across me, I just squished it hard. And bruised myself probably. LOL

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Did I tell you that I rejoined Toast of Tampa Show Chorus? Well... I did. I've been to 5 rehearsals so far, passed my audition, choreography, and am just now waiting to be voted into the chorus. Chris loves it that I come home every Tuesday night so happy.

At lunch today I was thinking about Barbershop Competitions... both men's and women's. And my mind went to a really cool story I'd like to share with you. It shows the kindness that stems from this barbershop family.

Chris was in the Heralds of Harmony at the time. We were young... rather new to barbershop, and the kids were young. The Heralds were getting ready to go to International Competition in Nashville. We didn't have a lot of money, and certainly didn't have anything saved for emergencies (the getting married and having a baby at 18 didn't allow us to save anything).

It was the night before we were supposed to leave. The plan was that Chris was going to drive up to Nashville in his truck. But that evening, heck, I think it was actually on the way to rehearsal, his truck broke down. I remember it was something he could fix, but he couldn't fix it in a day.

I drove him up to the last rehearsal before we were supposed to leave. We were late (because of the truck breaking down) so he didn't have time to tell his director, then Tony DeRosa (who is now my chorus at director!) that he couldn't go to Nashville. So he jumped into the rehearsal and figured he'd talk to Tony after rehearsal.

I was sitting on the floor, watching them sing. I remember Chris singing and how much I enjoyed watching him sing. Then they got to "When You Wish Upon a Star" or something like that.... it was a slow song and just BEAUTIFUL. The chorus locking and ringing barbershop chords. Watching Chris sing from the heart. And my heart breaking because I was the only person in the room (other than Chris) who knew he couldn't go with them to Jacksonville. My heart began to break for him... and I felt the tears beginning to well in my eyes.

I didn't want to make a scene at ALL, and so I quietly got up in the middle of the song, and went outside to cry by myself. I was sobbing quietly when a friend of mine, Chris DeRosa, came in. She was walking past me and I tried to pretend like I was fine, but she noticed I was crying and asked me what was wrong. I tried to just smile and say I was fine, but I couldn't hold it in.

You have to know that in our Barbershop choruses, singing at an international competition level, the WORK that you put into getting everything ready for competition is a LOT of work. I could understand if he couldn't go just because we were broke... but... it was just because the truck broke down that evening.

I explained to Chris DeRosa why I was crying. Explained about the car and all of that. Well... her family is a big-ole barbershopping family. Her brother, Tony, was the director, her dad, Papa Joe DeRosa was the former director and a VERY well known barbershopper. Her mom was also a barbershopper. She understood why I was so upset.

The next thing I remember was her talking to her parents, Lois and Papa Joe. They came over to me and said "he is taking our Van to Nashville, and you are not saying no".

Uh... what?

They explained that they had a van at home that was just going to sit there. It would make it to Nashville just fine. They insisted that we take the van.

How can we borrow their car? Not to run to the store... to run up to Nashville! It seemed like WAY too much. My ears were ringing... I remember being stunned by the offer. I kept trying to say no... I mean, what if something happened on the way up to Nashville? What if, God forbid, there was an accident? Papa Joe said if there was an accident - it was meant to be, it would have happened anyways, they had insurance, and they would not hold it against us by any means... it was God's will. Again, they wouldn't take no for an answer.

It's been many years now since that contest. Chris DeRosa is now Chris Kirkman... married to a WONDERFUL man. She lost her daughter to cancer. Papa Joe passed away the year before that. And I now sing in the chorus with Tony as director and his mom and Chris.

I will never forget their graciousness. They didn't just 'let us borrow a van'... they allowed him to make that memory of the International Competition in Nashville.

If the whole world were like the DeRosa's example... we'd live in one wonderful place. God is blessing them every day I'm sure.

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“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40

Happy Birthday Mom!

I'm really upset right now with Kayte. We allowed her to borrow our digital camera to take to a Halloween party she was going to the other day. We told her, just make sure you bring it right back to us -- it's our ONLY camera and it's Uncle Chris's work camera.

She left it in Julie's glove box to her car. Somehow or another -- someone STOLE it out of Julie's glove box. As if they knew it was in there. Didn't take one single other thing... just our camera.

Chris is upset that Julie left her car unlocked... I'm upset that Kayte left it in there to begin with when we were specific about brining it RIGHT home. You might think that Kayte is the youngest... so why would we trust her with this. But... of all four kids, Kayte really is the most 'responsible'.

Usually.

Apparently not this time. Funny, I was just looking at the photos of Christmas 2007 when I got that camera from Chris. I was SO HAPPY to finally have a digital camera to be able to share photos with everyone and the family.

Sigh.... now I guess I know what to ask for this Christmas. Another digital camera. :o(

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We just had a big party at my house for my Mom's 65th birthday. I made dinner for her... Blackened Chicken Alfredo. It was a little too spicy for my taste, but still yummy. It's odd how much I enjoy cooking now. Cutting up the Basil leaves.... mixing the spices... just LOVE it. I thought it was going to be hard cooking for 14.... but... I actually have a ton left over. Probably because it was too spicy.

We had Mom and John, Katie, Tony and her two daughters, Amanda, Julie and my whole crew.

Mom got several nice things for her birthday, but I know what she loved most of all was everyone being together. She got a picture of all her grandkids in one picture. Good times!

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Here are the photos I promised you of the kids taken this year at school. I should run... still have much to do to unwind from the night.

I'll leave you with this for this evening...

Gratitude

By Adelaide Aldi

Gratitude always gives back, I had been down in the dumps this week, and thinking things are just not kicking into gear. I don't know how many times I switched on to different tools to switch my mood and lift my spirits and still, things didn't seem to take shape. The 'Secret' says, find a song or memory that keeps you happy. I even tried listening to various chapters of the secret to get that focus but to no avail.

This morning I came to work, Friday should be an exciting day, it's the start of the weekend, and I still felt like I'm not making head or tail. I was up early because I felt like there was just not going to be enough time in the day for all the things I had to do; I was feeling anxious. I had a presentation to make, radio errands to run, a tender paper to write and it just seemed like my day was doomed from the start.

But as I got to work, a cousin called me with some semi good news that reflected that our relationships as kin were going to change for the better. That put a smile on my face. And soon, after that, I learned I didn't have to go for the presentation after all. So that put an even bigger smile on my face. Then I found a CD that I had been fretting about because I couldn't find it. So my day just kept getting better.

I was saying thank you silently for all these coincidental blessings. This is the process of gratitude I suspect. It's said that no matter how things can be going wrong on the outside, as long as you have a sense of gratitude flowing in you, things can turn out for the better.
I started thinking back to how I woke up this morning and didn't give thanks that I had woken up early, or that my colleague gave me a ride to work, or that the presentation could work out even if I am there or not.

The little things that we have and do in our lives, all deserve, gratitude. Gratitude begets blessings your way. I know it's not easy to stay positive all the time, and I suffer from that, many a time, but I am slowly learning that whatever, you do, always do your best, and give gratitude for the little things and experiences. Gratitude will always reciprocate with bigger blessings.

Everything Is Possible

Today is Friday, the last day of my totally random three-day vacation days from work. I needed to take vacation days before the end of the year... so I just picked seven random days in October, November and December to enjoy the days off.

Things here at home are kinda crazy. For example... last night we got a call from Kayla at about 9:30. She was crying really bad and told me to please come up to her work. There was a Jamaican guy who works with her that was there harassing her. She's had problems with this guy before. She has told us that he keeps "touching" her while she works and she yells at him, telling him to stop. I asked Chris to get into 'corrections officer' mode and let's go up to McDonald's to check on her.

We get up there and the guy was already gone. The police had already been called by McDonald's management. Apparently this guy and his cousin (who is a very large and intimidating guy) came up and started cursing at Kayla. They crossed the line when they threw dipping sauces at her.

The manager said that he 'would be fired' - but there was a process for that. The police officer said that since he was technically still an employee, they couldn't issue a trespass order that night. But - once he was fired - if he came back, they could then issue the trespass warning.

I'm telling you -- they BETTER fire the guy immediately. I'm already still fuming that this McDonald's hasn't refunded money they've taken out of her check for drawer shortages. I think I told you that before... they take money out of her check if her drawer is short. There are several issues with that: one being that she is not the only one with access to that drawer, and that they take the money out when she's short, but don't put money IN if she's over. They said she signed something when she started saying it was okay for them to do that... but it's still against the law - any HR person can tell you that -- and she was a minor, only 16 at the time.. it doesn't matter what she signed. So... yeah... I'm still upset about that.

To add to my day yesterday, I got a call from one of Kayla's teachers. She wanted to meet with me to talk about Kayla's attitude and behavior. I met with her yesterday afternoon and she explained to me that Kayla's grades are good in her class, but her attitude is horrible. She said that she talks throughout class to her friends, at will, regardless of what the teacher is talking about or how many times she tells her to stop. Not good. Then she tells me that Kayla has a good friend that she talks to throughout class. This friend has already been suspended once this year, and that the friend was not doing well in class and really wasn't going to 'go anywhere'. Kayla, on the other hand, DOES do well in class and has a bright future in front of her. This teacher can't figure out why Kayla is associating with her. That - this girl is going to bring her down. I can totally see that... Kayla's whole new group of friends are not the long-term friends kind of people. I don't know what she's doing there. Then she tells me that Kayla also brings food into her class and eats, even though it's against class rules and she's told her to stop. The teacher said that she has never before had a class like this class -- where she will tell the kids to do something, get out a book or assignment, and someone will just say "no"! Then it infects the rest of the class and everyone tells her "no". She explained that Kayla's attitude is "I can do whatever I want and you can't do anything about it". Sigh... I know all about that - I've seen it plenty too. But I also know that Kayla wants to do the right thing... and that will hopefully keep her on track.

I had a talk with Kayla and explained that she had the chance to be the GOOD example in this class. That the teacher doesn't deserve kids talking back to her every day. She is there from 6:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon 5 days a week... just because if a kid wants to come before or after class for help, she wants to be there for them. She doesn't deserve to be treated poorly. And Kayla has enough charisma and friends to where HER deciding to act well in the class might just ripple on through the rest of the class. She said she's going to try, so we'll see.

Jonathan has had a really bad week. He has been SO addicted to that computer, playing World of Warcraft. On school days he plays from 3:30 in the afternoon until bedtime, only taking breaks when we force him to do so. On weekends, it's all-day until he has a scheduled break. Now, the computer he was using has been returned - so he doesn't have one he can use. It was really hard for him... I know. But -- I have to tell you how wonderful it was last night. He played X-Box for a little while after school, then he went to a friend's house for a couple hours, came home and played Piano (made up a new song). I muted the television and just sat for a while... listening and smiling. It was wonderful to see him not stuck in one place/in one chair ALL DAY.

Justin has had a good week. He received a card the other day from one of his teachers. It says "Justin - Congrats on being selected "most honorable" student! I am so proud of you; you take your education and roles as a learning student seriously, and I know you will be so successful in your future plans. Thank you for all you are - Keep up the excellent work! :) Ms. Orlando" WOW, what a surprise that was, and what an honor for Justin!

Speaking of Justin, he is going on Monday for the MRI of his knee, then Tuesday to meet with the doctors out at USF again to discuss the results and possible surgical options. Sure hope all of that goes well.

I got the WORST haircut of my life last weekend. Sunday I went for a little 'trim'. My bangs were in my eyes, and so I knew it was time for just a bit to be trimmed, it had been two months since my really GREAT haircut. I got compliments all the time on my hair, so I wanted to make sure to keep the look 'fresh', not wait another 6 or 8 months for a haircut like I usually do. I went to the same place, Great Clips, but got a different guy. I told him what I wanted, and he did a horrible job. Cut WAY more than a trim... then he did it horribly uneven. My right side was 3/4 of an inch longer than the left. There were pieces that were hacked away and other pieces that were - literally - 2 inches longer in length. You could clearly see it when I tried to put a curling iron in it. HORRIBLE. I lived with it a few days, before finally deciding to go to a different Great Clips and asking them to fix it. Now it's just SHORT all over. UGG. But... at least it's even. I tried to figure out what to 'do' with it this morning... and I just can't find a style I like. I'm just SO upset that this guy ruined my hair. I keep saying to myself though... "It'll grow back!" It will, and it's only hair... so I'll make the best of it I guess.

Report cards should be here next week. I don't know what we are going to do with the kids and their phones. The cell phones were given to Kayla, Justin and Kayte as a 'reward' for getting honor roll, with the understanding that they would have them taken away if they didn't make honor roll the next 9 weeks. Jonathan has a cell phone which was given to him to keep reminders and schedule tasks - things he forgets because of his aspergers. Well... Kayla is going to have a D on her report card. That much we are sure about. But... Kayla will run out and get a Metro PCS phone if we take hers away. She has done it twice before, and she told us she'd do it again. So... what to do about that? We decided to make her pay her own share of the cell phone bill when it comes in. Kayte, I am pretty sure, is going to have honor roll. She had a C, but it was a 79.8, so I think they are going to round it up to a B. Justin has a C, which he thinks is unfair to him. He had a workbook stolen from his locker and he didn't make up the work between the time it was stolen and he got a new workbook. All the other grades in the class are great, with the exception of those few zeros, which brought him down to a C. Justin thinks it's unfair that he lose his cell phone for this, since it was 'beyond his control'. I think he could have borrowed someone else's workbook, re-written all the assignments, and just turned them in. I got permission for him to do this from the teacher, but he never did it. Said that the other kids workbooks were already completed and graded and it felt like cheating, so he didn't do it. So.... I'm torn about him. Jonathan is going to have 2 C's I'm pretty sure. But Jonathan's phone wasn't given to him on the understanding that he needed honor roll to keep it. So.... I just don't know what the right thing to do is. If I take Justin's phone, he's certainly going to think it's unfair that Jonathan and Kayla both still have their phones. This parenting thing is pretty tough at times like this!!

I have photos of the kids from school, I'll try to get them scanned and uploaded her in a couple days. All the kids look GREAT! And... all of them growing up so much. Justin and Jonathan are getting so tall, Kayla and Kayte are both so beautiful! As soon as I figure out how to scan from the printer using this computer (Vista - ugg!), I'll get them loaded here for you.

We are having a big dinner here at my house on Sunday for my mom's birthday. She's going to be the big 6-5. We were going to go out to eat, but figured with the economy the way it is and everyone pinching pennies, it would be better to eat a home-cooked meal. So... I'm going to make her one of my favorite Apron's meals... Blackened Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo. Should be good! I was going to make another batch with shrimp, but the more I think about feeding 13 people, the more I think I need to make it as easy as possible and I might just stick with only the chicken. Wish me luck on this dinner, I'm a little nervous about it.

As Halloween approaches and the Christmas decorations hit the store, I'm surprised that I'm not more freaked out about the fact that we are less than two months away from Christmas. I guess I'm now okay with knowing that the kids really have everything they 'need'. They know I'm facing a job loss at the beginning of the year, so I think they'll be okay with us getting whatever we can afford for them for Christmas. Of course, they haven't yet started asking... but - given the times I know that we are not the only family in this financial boat. I have faith that God will provide -- He always has.

I'm still nowhere with the job search. I've gotten two calls out of the dozens of places I sent my resume to. One was for a part-time position that didn't pay all that well. The second was from a guy who was opening a metal manufacturing shop in Oldsmar and he needed a 'Girl Friday' to start in a week. Oh, and the Girl Friday needed to understand she'd be working with men all day long... and country men on top of it. I pretty well understood what he was saying. I could probably work in that environment - but I am not willing to leave my current boss in a lurch by starting a new job in a week. So... I'm continuing to look. I know God has a plan... I just have to believe in it and keep the faith. And with the help of your prayers, I'm going to keep the faith.

" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Mark 9:23

Prayers for Justin

Well... it's official - Justin has a torn ACL in his knee.

Chris took him to see the doctors out at USF on Thursday and they confirmed what the initial thought was - torn ACL. He has to do pre-surgical physical therapy, and they - again - told him to keep walking on it. He is moving around much better on it now though. The swelling has gone down quite a bit and he is really careful about using it. He takes the stairs at home nice and slow... keeps it wrapped most of the time... etc.

Justin tells me that they are going to schedule the surgery on 11/4. I don't yet know the exact date of the surgery, but I'll let you know when I hear.

He could actually go his entire life and NOT have the surgery... but he would never again be able to play sports of any kind. And... Justin is a VERY active boy who loves all kinds of sports... we need to have this fixed. They say if he works hard at therapy, it's possible he could resume playing football next year - his Senior year of high school. I know he would very much like that - he was just getting to be really good at his position.

I was worried about the therapy at first... how to schedule it three times a week when we are already so busy. I mean... we'd make time for it of course, but it seemed a little overwhelming when I looked at the calendar and realized that we'd need to schedule this three times a week after work for a while (both pre-surgical and post-surgical therapy). But... something really neat happened.

Justin went to football practice on Saturday, because he is still a part of the team. He couldn't work or play of course, but he could be there to support his team. Well - Gaither High School has a trainer there from USF. She worked with him on Saturday and suggested that he do his pre-surgical therapy there with her. Justin knows her, he likes her, and he's already THERE 6 days a week. She's going to call his doctor on Monday and clear it with her. I'm sure the doctor will be fine with it... she's trained for this sort of thing and she has all the therapy equipment right there at the school. This is a wonderful solution for us!

Speaking of wonderful... I know I told you all that Chris was fortunate enough to go to the World Series last blog. Our best friend Michelle, who's company is a sponsor for the Rays, got two tickets for the first game. She brought Chris along since it was actually Chris who told her initially to partner with the Rays this year. What a great year it was to partner up with the Rays, huh?

Well, I know I was a bit bummed about it last blog, but honestly - I was happy for them. their tickets were AWESOME - two tickets in the Whitney Bank Club, where they have leather seating, TV's, and tons of free food and drinks. Not hot dogs and chips... we're talking Salmon, Prime Rib and lots of other great stuff. Plus all the free beer you could possibly want. Incredible! Then... they were given two more seats once there, right on top of the Rays' dugout! They went down to sit on the dugout about the 6th inning or so.

Justin and Jonathan had a big fight today. They don't usually fight anymore - they did when Justin first moved in, but not much anymore. This morning, Jonathan was trying to make breakfast, which was toaster strudels. He needed the toaster. Our toaster is kinda weird, it's on the side/built into the microwave. You can only cook 2 at a time... but I like the toaster as it's good on space on my counter. Jonathan couldn't figure out how to work it.

Justin came down and saw how much trouble Jonathan was having. Justin convinced Jonathan that the toaster was 'broken' but that he knew how to fix it. He offered to fix it, as long as Jonathan let Justin eat first. Jonathan didn't want that... he just wanted to toast the things. Justin refused to help him unless he offered to let him go ahead of him.

A big fight ensued - so our morning today was off to a pretty bad start. I talked to both boys... telling Jonathan that his reaction of anger was 'over the top' and inappropriate - and I told Justin he should have just helped his cousin, not tried to get something out of it. I told him - if you love someone, especially family, you don't offer to fix something ONLY if you personally get something in return. He should have just showed Jono how to toast it. Justin couldn't grasp the concept that he did anything wrong. Sigh....

I've had a horrible headache for days now. Been sick on top of it with some kind of cold/flu. I actually took a half sick day on Friday - which is only my 3nd sick day of the entire year. The headache is because I'm once again out of my Topamax (preventative medicine for migraines). I swore I wouldn't run out again... but I get my pills from Julie. It's a long story about how come I get them from Julie... but I found out today I can't do that anymore, so I have to go back to my doctor and get the refills. I'll do that tomorrow.

The Durango is fixed (again) thanks to Chris. He actually fixed two things, replaced the power steering pump and fixed a seal that was causing the radiator to leak. The funny thing was that the Durango has been.... squeaking I guess you'd call it.... in the engine for a while now. We didn't know why... just figured that it was because the poor thing was so old. When Chris replaced the power steering pump, the squeaking went away! Go figure!! It's so quiet now, it's almost like driving a new car. Wait... I don't know what that's like... it's like driving a MUCH better car now.

Still nothing on the job search. I'm trying not to get discouraged... really I am. But I could still use prayers - specifically prayers for me to not lose faith.

I should run... I still hear the kids awake upstairs and it's nearly 11 pm. Thank you for your continued prayers and support. It means the world to us.

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

World Series Night - Go Rays!

Oie, I'm having a bad day.

First, the Durango - the one we just fixed - broke again last night. Thank goodness that it's something Chris can fix this time. The power steering pump went out. It's getting to the 10-year mark, so I guess it's time that things are going to really start going out on it. But... we really need the Durango to last a few more years. I feel very fortunate that my little Mustang, now going to be 12 years old, is holding up well. I don't drive it far, which I guess helps. I might gripe about it now and again... heck, it has a spray-painted door, and when it rains the inside of my car gets very wet... but it sure does a good job of getting me from point A to point B.

I've applied for a LOT of jobs... and not had any calls yet for an interview. Bummer! Several of the jobs I've applied for using Craig's list have been for employment companies, not actually 'jobs' as they advertised for. One guy I called today was looking for an inside sales person for a plumbing company up in the North Dale Mabry/Lutz area. His ad said his company was 'recession proof'. Sounded like something I could do easily, so I called. In talking with the owner, he told me that he owned two companies, one a coffee shop of some kind (small), and the plumbing company. The plumbing company was doing so poorly that he closed the office, 'downsized' staff, and moved into the coffee shop to run the day-to-day business. He was hoping to hire someone to build the plumbing company back up. I kept thinking... if his business was down and he had to downsize his staff already - why did he advertise that his company was 'recession proof'? He told me I could come by the coffee shop to meet him... but I don't think that's something I want to do anymore.

And then I went to the school tonight to pick up Justin after football practice. He tells me that he hurt his knee and the trainer wants to talk to me. I pull up to the school and see Justin with this HUGE knee. They had an ice pack wrapped with an ace wrap around his knee. The trainer tells me that Justin was practicing football, went for a catch (he's a wide receiver) and jumped really high to catch the ball, fell on it wrong followed by someone falling on his knee. The trainer thinks he might have torn his ACL. Something about how his knee was moving and how quickly his knee swelled up. UGG

This means I need to get him to the doctors tomorrow. Only... tomorrow is a HORRIBLE day for me to miss any work. Remember that company that dropped us... the one that caused me to be told that my position is going to part time in January? Well, another company - a competitor for the one who is dropping us - wants to hire us. They are coming to our office tomorrow to meet with us first thing in the morning.

But - sometime tomorrow - I have to call the primary care doctor. He will probably want to see Justin. Maybe get an X-Ray of his knee. Then he'll probably refer us to the Orthopedic doctors. When the heck am I going to be able to do all this?????

And the Rays, so far - top of the 5th - are not winning. Sigh....

Chris and Michelle are AT the World Series. Michelle, who's company is a corporate sponsor with the Rays, got the call yesterday that her guy there was going to give her two tickets to the game tonight. Oh... not 'just' tickets. They get tickets to the Whitney Bank Club seats. Free food (good food!), free drinks, leather seats............. sigh. But I'm happy they are there enjoying the game. What a great friend that - when given extra tickets, even for the flipping World Series - calls us to go with her. :o) Usually she gets four seats, but - this being the World Series - she only got two.

I'm here with the four kids... which I took to dinner. It was going to be just Jono and I... but then Kayla and Kayte came home, and Justin called to be picked up. So we all had dinner.

So, I'm here - watching the game on the sofa all by myself.

I just put all the kids to bed. By 'put to bed' I mean that I told them for the past 20 minutes to go to bed... then went upstairs to get them to turn off TV's and lights and all that stuff. Sheesh.

Justin tells me he doesn't feel well... he thinks that he is running a fever. I check it - and sure enough... low grade fever. On top of everything else... a FEVER!?!?

Chris just called - their Rays guy just moved them to seats 116, which have been 'our seats' all year long - right on top of the Rays' dugout. He wants me to watch for them on TV. From the Whitney Banks Club where they get to eat and drink all they want... and now on top of the dugout? SHEESH!

I sure hope the game doesn't go on too long tonight. I have to get some sleep - Justin, who can barely hobble around on his knee - has to get going early tomorrow morning in order to catch the bus. He is usually the last one up, the last one out the door - and only ONCE, I'm told, he's actually made it to his bus stop in time to catch the bus to school. He usually ends up missing it and having to run and catch the bus at another stop. No running tomorrow... and I have a bad feeling that he's going to be knocking on my door at 6:45 in the morning telling me that he's missed the bus completely. We'll see....

I think it's time to open a bottle of wine, pour a glass, and get in the hot tub. LOL There' s a TV out there, I can watch and relax at the same time. :o)

I think this is the quote I need to focus on whenever I get frustrated about finding a job. I'll leave you with this for the night...

"Focus more on your desire than on your doubt, and the dream will take care of itself. You may be surprised at how easily this happens. Your doubts are not as powerful as your desires, unless you make them so." -Marcia Wieder-

Faithless or Afraid?

First - the good news. Kayla's blood test came back. She is allergic to cats, dogs and scallops. Odd - I know. She has NO symptoms of allergies what-so-ever. Just a random blood test that came in showing an abnormality which pointed us in a direction that eventually told us that. Weird. But a blessing that it wasn't something else - for sure!

Julie had me mad as hell about it. Came in on Sunday saying that Arthur said that Leukemia "runs in his family". Well - gee, I'm sorry to hear that, but what does that have to do with us? Well, since he thinks he's Kayla's father, it's important. Oh, and Kayla believes he's her father too. Forget the fact that the freaking PATERNITY TEST said he wasn't. I mean, I can really want to be a car... sit in my garage for YEARS... but it doesn't make me a car.


I told Julie that if Arthur said one flipping word to Kayla on Sunday about his 'family history' I would go nuts. I mean, seriously - I wouldn't let the kids go with Julie anymore. If I can't trust her to keep them physically AND mentally safe - then so be it. (Oh because Arthur is at Julie's house all the time now, apparently.)


Then I told Julie that - if Arthur was so 'worried' - he should do the 'fatherly thing' for once in his life. Go out and get - yet another - paternity test. Go ahead and prove that he IS her father. Because - ya know what? IF he is indeed her father, there are lots of 'family history' type questions she NEEDS answered. But, he doesn't want to do that. Ya know why? Because 1) he knows he's really not her father and he'd rather just say it and believe what he's saying than have yet another test to prove it wrong and 2) he can't afford the test anyways because he's a slacker who mooches off people - no job, no money. But - hey -- if I'm wrong, I'm wrong -- go on and do it! Because the one person who would totally and completely benefit from the information is Kayla. And the only person he hurts with his constant lies is the same. So - just do it.


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The other reason I haven't blogged this week. -- sigh --


I've seemed to have lost my faith.


My job is to go part-time in January 2009. At the very best I'm looking at staying at the same job with a much longer commute to work (40 minutes vs 1.5 miles I currently drive one way) and less hours and a lot less money. I am the only one with a 'dependable' paycheck... Chris owns his own business and it's up and down much of the time. Simply put -- we can not pay the bills and live in our home on what I'd make when they cut me to part time.


Which leaves me looking for other work. Have you read the newspapers? Yeah... everyone else is looking for work as well. It's a HORRIBLE time to be looking for a job.


I'm terrified.

I'm upset.

I'm...... scared.


I used to have faith that God would have a purpose for this change. A reason. He led me to this job, He would have a reason for sending me somewhere else. That there would be something wonderful... and I couldn't wait to see what it was. But - now - I can't pick up a paper or open CNN or any news vendor site without seeing it plastered everywhere. Everyone is looking for jobs and nobody can find work. What little jobs there are are not paying well.


Then you talk to people who think they are helping by telling you that they know how you feel because they know so many people who are just like you. A friend of theirs has been trying to find a job for 6 months now and still can't find anything. A manager passing out her Resume on Waters and Dale Mabry. It doesn't really help -- I know all this already and it just makes me MORE afraid.

But, ya know... I wonder really if it's that I've lost my faith or that I'm afraid to rely on my faith.

I went to chorus rehearsal last night and passed my final part of the audition process. The only thing I have left to do is pay money to become a member. $40 a month, plus pay my international and regional dues... at a time like THIS? Really??

But then ~ deep inside ~ I feel this voice that tells me to have faith. FAITH?! Faith that things really will be okay.

But if I DO have faith that things will be okay - and I fall flat on my face and come Jan 2009 I either have a job that pays HALF of what I make now and we have the electricity and water shut off in Feb of 09 and begin to lose everything shortly thereafter.... am I just a person who relied on faith too much?

Or am I afraid of being a faithful person?

I don't know. I just know I want to go to sleep and wake up in a few months. After the elections - when the economy is beginning to right itself - when I know something more about my job.

But it's now dinner time and I've got to start dinner. I don't even have time to go fishing for a quote or something profound.

Please pray for me. Pray for me to find my faith. To not be afraid.

Prayers Needed

I'm off work today. I'm supposed to be in Jacksonville watching Chris and Jonathan compete in their quartet competition, but they pulled out at the last minute. Jonathan had been sick the past few weeks so they were not vocally ready yet with the songs. Just as well... I wasn't keen on going up there and spending all that money on a hotel room, event tickets and food - especially if they were going to sing the same two songs they just competed with a few months ago. So I took the vacation day today and am going to go visit my mom in a few minutes.

In the meantime, I thought I'd get in a quick blog to ask you all to say a quick prayer for Kayla.

A month or so ago she had a sore throat. I looked and her tonsils were swollen, so I took her to the pediatrician. While on the way, my sister Katie told me I should ask them about her hair falling out while I was there. Good idea, might as well kill two birds with one stone at this doctor's visit! So we did - and he ordered some blood work to find out what was going on. He said she would probably need to see a dermatologist for the hair falling out, but the blood test might give us some clues as to what was going on. Good stuff. She didn't need to go 'fasting' because they weren't looking for blood sugar or anything - so we went on afternoon last week.

The Doctor himself called me on Monday. I used to work for this group of Doctors and my first thought... if the Doctor is calling me and not his nurse... this can't be good.

He proceeds to tell me that her blood work came back abnormal. "Good," I thought, "this will explain why her hair is falling out." And I even said something to that nature to the doctor. He said the abnormalities had nothing to do with her hair falling out. The tests they ran for her hair falling out were normal. What came back abnormal was her blood sugar (it was high) - however, she wasn't fasting -- so he wants her to come back and do the test when she's had nothing to eat to make sure it's okay. He's pretty sure it'll be fine then.

The other abnormality was in her white blood count. Something called "eosinophils". It was more than three times the normal range. He told me that this typically meant one of three things. Usually it was either:
1) The test was just flat-out wrong. The only way to know that was to re-test her. We'll do that when she comes back fasting. We are doing that tomorrow (Saturday)
2) She has some really bad allergies. Now... if this were Kayte getting this news, I'd be like "oh yeah.. surely this is it! Kayte is allergic to EVERYTHING! But, Kayla?
3) Three is the not-so-good part. Three is that there is something else going on. Something like a tumor or Leukemia. This is probably NOT it. It's MUCH more likely an allergy we just don't know about. But still... that third possibility even being on the table -- it's just -- terrifying.

While the doctor was talking my ears were ringing. I kept thinking about Julie's history. Asthma/Allergies. Diabetic. Then -- of course -- Ron. Ron who died of Leukemia. Now... Ron isn't Kayla's birth father, so it's silly really to think that it could be in any way related. And -- even if he WERE her birth father -- the chemicals from the dirty bombs in the Gulf War gave him Leukemia, not a family history... so.... stop thinking about it Tina! Yet I couldn't process what he was telling me.

So much so that I had to call the nurse back and ask her to explain everything to me all over again so that I could write it down correctly and make sure that I had it all right.

On that same day - I get a phone call from my mom. Caller ID tells me it's from Tampa General Hospital. No biggie - she works there - it always says that. She says "Don't worry... I'm at the hospital." Now... I'm still fuzzy from the news about Kayla, and I say "Yeah, mom - well you work there, so why would I worry?" She then tells me "No, I mean I am IN the hospital."

Gulp

She was working and something happened with her heart. She wouldn't get into details with me because she didn't want me to worry. She said they were just going to keep her for observation to make sure she was okay. She tells me NOT to come up and see her... she'd be fine... but she just wanted me to know.

(I might add that while I was at bible study she leaves me a voice mail telling me that Julie her "favorite daughter" went up to see her. Even though mom said not to. Yeah, okay mom. Next time you tell me not to do something... not to tell someone you are in the hospital... let's see how well that secret is kept. LOL )

They kept mom a few days and she's now home. But the news hit me hard on Monday.

I remember walking into an office where my boss was and saying "I don't think today could get any worse" and he SAID --- you really shouldn't say that! I kinda thought he might be right.

Just as I was leaving for the night I get the call that my little sister, Kayte, who is in Colorado with her family and is supposed to be flying home soon, has been at the ER with their baby (our God Daughter, Bella). She had been a little sick while up there. They were shopping and all the sudden, little Bella just started having a seizure. Can you even imagine? I can't. All I could think was my words "I don't think today could get any worse". She's home and fine now - she just has those seizures whenever she starts to run a high fever. Poor little thing. :o(

The other thing I'd ask for prayers about is - jobs. Prayers for Chris's job - that work will continue to come in and that he will be paid for the work he does (he has to invoice customers after the work is done... and then wait to be paid!). And prayers that my search for a job will be what and and where God leads me to go.

Thank you all!

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
-Albert Einstein-

Just Brakes Doesn't Care!

I've never done this before - but - I'm going to tell you about our horrible experience at Just Brakes and tell you why you should not go there for your brake job, should you need brakes for your car.

Our Durango, having over 113,000 miles on it, has been having problems. Remember not too long ago the front wheel pretty much fell off the thing. Well, not even 'pretty much', it kinda did! Lately we've noticed some other problems with the Durango. When we hit the brakes, it made a clunking noise. We also really need shocks and struts because when we go over bumps in the road, you feel EVERYTHING.

Chris usually works on our brakes. Always has. But this time... he thought something else was wrong. The car didn't drive like it was just a brake problem. Not your typical brake squeeling or problem stopping, this was.... different. So... Chris thought - we should bring it to someone to have it looked at to diagnose the problem.

We decided to take it to "Just Brakes", because you know their slogan: "At Just Brakes, we really do care!". Sounded good. There is one right on Dale Mabry south of Lambright. We brought the Durango in, told them about the noise, and sat and waited for them to look at the car.

The first thing they called us into the 'bay' for was to look at the Master Cylinder. There was fluid in there, they said. Not good - he said. And he said it was a "Safety Issue" over and over again. He tried to show us this fluid. First, he took out a seal and went looking for a screwdriver. He stuck the screwdriver down into the cylinder, but - he said - it wasn't 'long enough'. Well... thinking back now... how did he know there was fluid in there? It was like he was FISHING for it. He then went to find something longer to 'show us' the fluid. He found a long stick of cardboard, stuck it WAY down the cylinder and pulled it out, and sure enough, about a quarter inch of fluid was there. Not good, he tells us. This could make our brakes spongy. Well... we don't have that issue at all. He tells us our Master Cylinder might have to be rebuilt, but that he would continue looking over the car. This was just the first thing he noticed.

We went back into the waiting room to wait. He called us back out to show us our brakes. Chris had put the left on the right and the right on the left when he did our last brake install. He explained that it wouldn't cause any problems at all... and he didn't see any 'wear' on them... but, he just wanted us to see that they were on wrong. Great, thanks for that Mr. Professional.

Again, we go back into the waiting room, and then again he calls us out. This time he shows us the rear wheels. Have we ever had the rear brakes done? Well... no. But, we've never had a problem with them. The guy tells us that he doesn't know if they are even working. Well, we can tell you that they do indeed work, you can drive down the road and hit the rear brakes and they'll stop the car just fine -- they work. Sure... they LOOK old, but the car IS a 1999.

I also noticed some things while I was sitting in the waiting room. There were lots of people waiting. One that caught my attention was a teenage boy with his mom. The boy had his cash in a bank envelope (probably just enough saved to do the $99.95 brake job they advertise would be my guess). Mom and the kid kept asking them to just do the $99 brake job, but the guy kept telling them that they couldn't do JUST that because of the "security issue" they had found. They couldn't NOT address the security issue. I made a mental note of that and wondered if this was going to come up later in our conversation when they try to tell us about our car.

Also while we were waiting, Chris was on his phone and did a Google Search on Just Brakes Dale Mabry Tampa. He found LOTS of websites of people complaining about being ripped off. Scammed. Horrible stories, and they all sounded exactly like what was happening to us. What they said was that once they go the parts OFF your car, they couldn't put them back on the vehicle. Something about putting bad parts on the car and sending you out the door... that being a security problem in and of itself. All of the websites said that nobody paid $99. for a brake job, that it was always more money than that.

With each story Chris read, he began to get increasingly worried. He finally decided to put a stop to it BEFORE they got all the brake parts off the car. (At this point they only had the wheels off) He goes out to the bay and tells the man to stop what he is doing. He explains that he was reading some things on the Internet that made him uncomfortable about having our car worked on here. Chris apologized for not doing that before we came, and offered to pay for his time that he worked on it so far.

The guy - probably 6' 3" and weighing in over 300 lbs, came in and was VERY upset with us. He asked what he had done wrong. We explained that it wasn't HIM, but that what we were reading sounded very fishy and we just felt better taking the car someplace else. The guy told us he had two kids at home and he would NOT scam anybody. I think he thought we went LOOKING for a scam website... we did not... they just come up when you google their name.

Anyways... they guy became very agitated. But Chris remained calm for the most part, just saying over and over again "just please, put my car back together - I'll pay you for my time - and we'll leave." But the guy was really upset. He said to Chris, "heck, you are the guy who put your brakes on wrong!". Nice. Then TWO times he called Chris uneducated.

Uneducated?

The second time he said it... Chris got into what I can only describe as corrections officer mode. He stood up, pointed his finger at him (you have to remember the waiting room is full of people) and said "That's the second time you have called me uneducated. Now you are starting to piss me off". With that , the guy really started yelling - YELLING at us!

He ended it when the guy finally walked in with our keys. The big guy behind the counter get up, opens the door and tells us to "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY SHOP!"

Oh yeah... it really happened. Holy cow.

Oh, and the brake light came on as we were leaving. Think they drained out our fluid? I think so.

So.... please..... go ANYWHERE to get your car worked on -- but do NOT go to Just Brakes.

We did end up taking the car to the place we took it when the wheel fell off before. They were honest Christan men. They called to give us the good and bad news. The good news - there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with our brakes at all. The bad news, our steering knuckle and something else was bad, something to do with the steering. (Chris could tell me, I forget!) So bad that had it broken when we were driving, we could have had no steering ability. Scary stuff. He had to take the front end apart to fix it, so while he was in there, for no extra labor cost, he went ahead and did the shocks at the same time. So... the front end of the Durango drives really well right now. Assuming - that is - that God's grace continues to let the transmission last only as long as we need it! So far... so good!

I have more news about Kayla, my mom and my God daughter who all need prayer... but for now -- it's late, and I just wanted to get this blog in about the Durango.

"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child." Forest E. Witcraft

Passed Audition

Okay, I can't BELIEVE it's taken me three days to post this....

I went to Toast of Tampa on Tuesday night for my second week. I auditioned, singing Alabamy along to a tape holding a tape recorder and Happy Birthday with three other parts in a quartet. I was SO NERVOUS, you just can't imagine. I think I had to start Alabamy 3 or 4 times... I kept messing up the words. Words? I knew this song from before - heck I can still do the choreography to it - why am I messing it up? I was nervous. I kept thinking to myself... I'm not good enough at Church... why am I here?? I tried to set those negative thoughts out of my head. Self-defeating. I know I am good at Barbershop singing. I can do this. So I actually held the recorder and did it with a little bit of choreography to help me remember the words, and got through it just fine. Not a lot of breath support because I was terrified, but good enough for a taped recording to get every note and breath right - not breathing in the 'no breath' spots and all that good stuff.

After rehearsal, the section leaders and director go into a room and listen to your tape. (No pressure) There they decide if you are good enough to go to the next step - the quartet. They asked me to come sing with the quartet, which I did.

And I PASSED!

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Now all I have to do is the choreography and pay my dues, and I'm in! So exciting!!

I come home every Tuesday night (err... Wednesday morning by the time I drag my butt home) and I'm just bouncing off the walls. It feels REALLY GOOD to feel so good about something for me. It doesn't feel 'selfish' or anything like it did before... it just feels............... right. It feels good. I feel... empowered. Happy.

Sigh............ :o)

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I probably should be a little more worried about singing in TOT without a 'job' -- given what is going on here with my job. But I'm not. I don't know why. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day at the grocery store, Ann (shout out - her husband reads my blogs every day!). She was saying how excited she would be - with the changes. Apparently she's used to changes like that. Me... who likes keeping jobs for a very long time and who's mom still lives in the house we moved to when I was 5 -- it's a bit more difficult to adjust to changes. But... I know that God provided me with this job and if He is moving me, He has good things in store for me. I'm really TRYING not to be terrified as I read the news about the lines of people looking for assistance who are well-qualified and just can't find jobs -- the statistics -- I instead try to remember that God has a plan as He always does and I must TRUST that plan. He will not let me down. He never has.

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Speaking of plans.... Kayla came home the other day telling us that her Guidance counselor at school told her that she could become a Senior THIS YEAR and that she could graduate in June, 2009. Kayla said it was because she had "enough credits".

This made NO SENSE to me. How could she POSSIBLY have enough credits? First of all, if Kayla does, then Justin does too because Justin is in advanced classes and Kayla is in -- well, we'll just call them 'not advanced' classes. Sure, Kayla is older and failed a grade, but that was FOURTH grade and has NOTHING to do with 'credits'. You begin collecting credits your in 9th grade. How does she have enough to graduate a year early?

She then tells me that she would have to take ONE class at Night School. Well... this raised a flag to me because of the last time she 'attended night school'. You know - she went one night and then the rest of the months she hung out with friends until 9:30 at night, coming home telling us she was just getting out of night school? Yeah.... not good.

Additionally, I had concerns about her scholarships. I am supposed to meet with a VA Counselor their summer year just before they go into their Senior year to apply for the GI Bill. Then... there are all KINDS of scholarships out there that kids can get when they are Seniors. It's now October. How many of those are now gone to the kids who have been Seniors all year already?

So, I told her I wanted to talk to her Guidance Counselor myself. She called me and told me that she had two concerns... one that Kayla told her last year that she really wanted to graduate with 'her class'. I didn't quite get that... she's been with these same group of friends since 4th or 5th grade. I'd think she would consider this 'class' her actual CLASS. Sure she's a little older, but she doesn't look it nor act it. Anyways....

Second was the fact that the school kinda frowns upon having 18 and 19 year olds on campus. See, if Kayte who is 15, gets into a fight and hits someone - she is suspended for 10 days. If Kayla who is 18 hits someone -- she can be arrested as an adult. The rules are different.

I told the counselor that -- while I understood her concerns, I was more concerned about Kayla making it to college. I explained the GI bill and scholarship stuff to her. She then told me that Kayla wouldn't really graduate in June... that she is actually three credits shy of graduating. Even IF she attended night school, she still needed two more credits. They would then send her to Gary Adult School.

An Adult School? Really??? So..... what would THAT look like on a college application?? I would think it wouldn't look so good!

She then told me that Kayla could graduate in December 2009... which would get her credits out of the way AND she'd still graduate early, which is what Kayla wanted. The only problem with that is that Kayla would miss all the really fun stuff of being a Senior... Pictures, Homecoming, Prom, Spring Break, Grad Night, and of course, the graduation ceremony.

I think I've talked her into sticking it out her full Senior year, but am not sure if she actually will. We'll see, it will be completely up to her - the best I can do is tell her what I believe is in her best interest and tell her what will happen if she chooses otherwise.

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Chris has been out of town yesterday and today. He took a job down in Ft. Myers or someplace like that.... too far to drive every day - so he got a $50 hotel room and is working the job away from home. We gotta do what we can, ya know? But the commercial jobs he's had are a true blessing at a time when the economic times have caused people to NOT want to work on their homes. For that, we are extremely thankful.

Chris just called me -- it's 4 pm and he's on his way home! Yeah! He wasn't sure if he'd be done early enough to come home today or he'd have to stay another day. I'm glad he'll be home tonight.

Maybe I'll run by my new favorite store that I can only shop for on nights like tonight - when the kids are going to be at Football and out for Friday night. Yes... I just discovered the Fresh Market. Oh my GOODNESS.... they have such GREAT food there! I mean, I can't feed a family of 6 there, but I can pick up dinner for Chris and I. :o)

Hey, speaking of things to be grateful for -- thank you to Gwen and to my boss at PERO Engineering who both pitched in money for Jonathan's trip to NY City for his chorus. Jonathan's chorus is going to NY City next year and they asked us to solicit donations. I guess I probably should have put that in my blog, huh? Well, donations are made out to "Gaither High School" and are to have his name on the checks so that they know it's for him. 100% of the money goes directly towards his trip. So, a big thank you to Gwen and Mr. Pero for doing that for us. If any of you are interested, let me know. I'm not sure if school donations are tax deductible - I'm assuming they are since the check IS made out to the school - surely that would be of some kind of tax benefit, huh? But I'm far from a tax expert - by a long-shot. LOL

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For those who have been keeping Jonathan in your prayers - thank you. I haven't really given a status update, but things ARE going better. He is acting and feeling better. He's been seeing the Psychiatrist, we see a family counselor once a week, and things are going well. Heck, my boy even has a girlfriend at school! Chris and Jonathan are working on their communication, and I am working on my discipline of Jonathan.

Speaking of which, I tried something Wednesday that worked VERY well. Jonathan has a tendency to talk 'down' to me. Treat me with TOTAL disrespect. If you could hear the way he talks to me sometimes, it would make your skin crawl. But I've allowed it for some time, mostly because I can tell he's really not - happy. Anyways....

I was talking to him about a couple of things. Actually - no - I was giving him what I THOUGHT was good news. More on that in a second. But in the middle of my TRYING to talk to him, he was nasty and pretty much told me "I'm too busy to talk to you". My blood boiled, I'd had ENOUGH of him talking down to me.

I told him that from now on - any time he mistreated me and/or talked disrespectful to me... I was going to go into World of Warcraft (the game he LOVES to play all day and night) and lock out a 30-minute time block. One time block each and every time he does it.

Parental controls are a wonderful thing.

With that, Jonathan shut off the computer game he was playing, turned his chair towards me and gave me his full attention. LOL -- Love it!

The 'good news' I had to tell him was that I managed to get him special permission to use HIS cell phone at school - but only to take notes and put in reminders and homework assignments. I talked to his Guidance Counselor, who talked to his Assistant Principal and I told them about his Aspergers (which they know about already). I told them that we got him the phone so that he could keep on top of things because his writing is not so good. Organizational skills are a weakness for him, part of his aspergers. Many other people with Aspergers, and books I've read, said to get a Palm Pilot or phone to help him keep up in school. We did - but with the new 'cell phone ban' -- he can't use it without the risk of having it taken away for 3 days.

They agreed that - if it'll help him with his organizational skills - they want him to use it. They gave him special permission to use his phone in school without the fear of it being taken away. As long as he isn't texting or calling friends. Good news! Yet Jonathan wasn't so receptive.

Anyways....

It's time for me to run... Chris is almost home and I've still got to get to the store. AND I just found out that Michelle is coming over for Dinner and the Rays game. Friday Night Party Night has RESUMED! (We call Friday nights "Friday night party nights" because we do something just for us - sometimes just involves us falling asleep on Michelle's sofa watching the Dog Whisperer... but still... it's for US and without kids!) So... YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEE

Please keep us all in your prayers!

Job Changes

*** WARNING - THIS BLOG IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE PITIFUL ***

You have been warned. I'm pretty darn sad. Down in the dumps. Scared. Nervous. Uncertain.

I love my job. Not 'what I do' really... I mean, we sell power plants for goodness sakes. I never thought in a million years I'd be doing that. But, I just LOVE the guys I work for. They are great Christian men, devoted fathers, and good husbands. It's a joy working for them. I believe God led me to this job for several reasons... it was a mile from my home at a time when I really needed it (just getting the kids). They were sympathetic and faith-filled bosses at a time when I really needed it.

And honestly, they needed me. When I got here, they office was a MESS. Papers everywhere. Checks that were partially entered. Partially???? Yeah, partially! Orders that were received days ago that were not yet entered. Quoted received a week ago or longer not yet done. Papers literally EVERYWHERE. Just... a mess. My skin would literally ITCH. I had to wipe down the keyboard and phone to work at the desk. Ew, ew, eww!

Now quotes are done within minutes. Phone are always answered on the first two rings. Orders are entered within 10 minutes. Checks are entered immediately and ALWAYS completely. I then check and double check to make sure that the computer matches exactly what the check deposit is. There is no filing to be done, it's done immediately. Everything is done immediately. Emails are answered quickly - and the customers LOVE it. I get kudos all the time.
I had my review on Wednesday. The good news is I had a stunning review. Everything I do is great. The only thing I could do more of is Marketing. The only thing holding me back from more marketing - honestly - is lack of product knowledge on many of the things we sell here and David's micro-managing of the tiny details. (We've been working on just getting new business cards for a year now, he doesn't like colors, layout, designs, etc.) But other than that -- what I DO -- what I was HIRED to do -- I do and go "above and beyond" all the time. I give 110%. I "excel" at everything. All the customers, all the principals, everyone tells him how great I am.

Even though we lost a principal (a company who hires us to sell their line) as of October 31st, he's going to give me a raise. Because I deserve it. Good news, right?

Not so fast.

He then tells me that he expects the loss of this principal will begin to financially impact the office about January. So on January 1st, they are going to cut my position to part time.

PART TIME????

I can't feed a family of 6 on part time!

He then tells me that he's going to move the office to Tarpon Springs. So I'd have to drive a good 40 minutes every day to get to work. But -- he tells me -- maybe I could find another part-time job to fill in the pay. Oh, and the hours he wants me to work??? 10-12 and 1-3. So.... I would then get a second part time job when?? At night??? Nooooo.... I think not. I'm not a part time kind of girl.

I want a job that pays me what I'm worth. Because I'm a freaking GREAT person who can whip an office into shape. I am VERY good at what I do. I know I am.

So.... I am now looking for another job. I have 3 months to find one. Not to worry, CNN says there are only 6.5 million other people out there looking for jobs as well. :o(

**My stomach flip-flops**

For those reading this who want to know exactly what I do... I can send you my resume if you post a reply and ask me to send it to you (leave me your email address). I have had 19 years of administrative coordinator/office manager positions and the last three years have been inside sales with office administration.

I would really like to stay in North Tampa as our cars are not all that reliable. Unless I land a whale of a job that pays me so well I can afford a car payment that is! But, it's also nice being close to the kids when they are sick or need rides home from school and that sort of thing. I don't want to do the 'job fair' thing... I'd rather find a job from someone who knows of a job opening.

**Big breath**

I'm really trying to not freak out about it. Trying to remember that God led me to this job and that THIS surely must be HIS plan. That, He has a better plan for me. Maybe a better paying job... heck, maybe one that offers benefits for the whole family. Right now I only have benefits for Jonathan and I and I pay almost $550 a month for it. Crazy, huh? My boss reimburses me for $225 of that, so it helps some ~ but it's still a lot to pay for insurance that doesn't cover all that much. Heck, with Jonathan's recent problems, I just found out that our "lifetime maximum" for mental health is $3,000. Three thousand? Hey Julie, could you IMAGINE that? That's not per year, that a LIFETIME maximum. Unreal. Gotta love insurance companies.

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Today I'm expecting the kids to come home and be really upset with me. I took both computers and hid them today. The kids rooms are horrible - the house has CRAP in every room that needs to be picked up or cleaned up - and I'm tired of the kids just coming home and doing what they want to do and not cleaning up after themselves. They blame it on one and take no responsibility for themselves. Fact of the matter, each of them has something lying someplace in the house. Katie's shoes, Justin's shirt, Jonathan's pants, Kayla's belt. Everyone's dishes and cups.

So I hid the computers and figured they could get back on them when they finally did some chores. Heck, Jonathan hasn't done laundry all week. I've been asking him to simply FOLD his clothes since Tuesday. It's now Friday and the basket finally made it's way up to his room. Still not put away.

One kid is responsible for doing towels. I refuse to do them because the kids use SO MANY towels weekly. I wash and use my own. We have roughly 35 towels. 4 kids will use all 35 towels in a week, easy. It used to make me crazy. I originally gave the job to Kayla as the oldest. There are TWO days a week in which to get all 35 towels washed. When she started working, I passed the job onto Justin. Now that he's at football practice and games 6 days a week, we had to pass the job to someone else - Jonathan being the third oldest, I gave the job to him. Guess what is not done? Yep. He tells me all he time he's just not going to do it. I remind him all the time. He just doesn't do it. I don't know what to do about it. Should I force him to do it? Force him to keep up his share -- Kayla and Justin did it. He's choosing to not do it. Sitting LITERALLY three feet away from the washer and dryer for HOURS playing a game, ignoring the fact that there should be towels washing on those days. Or... should I just let it go and -- when there are no towels left, each kid will wash their own towels. Forcing each kid to just wash their own.

Course, it could just be that I'm TERRIBLY grumpy right now.

Last night I got home after choir practice and just sat down and watched TV. I SHOULD have gone in immediately and told them everything that had not done. Checked bookbags, cleaned up dinner, laundry not done, dishes everywhere, cat litter not done in days, clothes on the floor, etc. But I didn't... I didn't want to deal with it. So I waited. Kayla was already in bed actually, Kayte was in her room. Justin got in from football and played a video game... Jono was on the computer. I chose to deal with it when they all centered around the stairs around 9:45 while getting ready for bed. Bad idea, and I know it.

Then again, I also know the kids hate it when I walk through the door and the first thing I do is complain about all the stuff they didn't do.

I'm just on edge. I suppose it would help if they would realize that I'm under terrible stress right now and pull their fair share of the housework. So I can at least come home and not think about how there is a mess everywhere I look. But I need to remind myself they are teenagers. In the "I-Me-My" generation.

Anyone want to give me advice here? Tell the kids to step up? Or should I chill out?

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Chris and I are going with some friends tonight to see the Fireproof Movie tonight. I'm excited about it. It looks like a really great movie, and it's been long overdue that a movie has been main-stream, Christian based, and focused on couples actually staying together through their marriage - tough times and all.

If you haven't seen it - go check out the preview: http://www.fireproofthemovie.com/

Doing The Right Thing

Chris received the COOLEST phone call earlier this week, I really wanted to tell you about.

If you remember - way back in 2006 I told a story about my husband - "my hero" who had gone 'above and beyond the call of duty' while on his way home from working at the Department of Corrections. Here is a snipit from that blog:

It was about 15 years ago, and this story is from memory, so I apologize to
Chris if I get any of the details wrong. Chris had just gotten out of
training to work for the Department of Corrections (DOC) and he was now employed
at a State Prison somewhere in South St. Petersburg. Because he was new, he had
to work the crappy shifts. He was getting off work – it was about 1 AM and he
was headed up the Interstate to get home.

He was traveling through the ‘rough’ section of town. South St. Pete at
that time was racially hot and tempers often flared between blacks and whites at
that time. Chris has always paid attention to his surroundings but did it even
more-so after his training with DOC. He noticed a car ahead of him, pretty
far away as he could just see the tail lights. Another car raced around Chris’s
at a high rate of speed, but slowed as it was passing the car way ahead of him.
Chris noticed a flash in the fast car… and thought that perhaps the guy had lit
a cigarette and the flash was from his lighter. Chris then noticed the other car
pull off onto the shoulder of the road.

A black male got out of the car and proceeded to try to flag Chris down.
Chris is in his DOC uniform, and he’s white – really white – in this section of town – at this time of night.
Should he stop?? What could the man possibly want?? Back then everyone didn’t
have cell phones, so he couldn’t have wanted that. Chris – for some reason –
decided to stop.

The man told Chris that the guy passing them in the other car SHOT into his
car for no reason, and the bullet pierced through the back seat and into the
side of his neice. Chris examined the girl and could not find an exit wound, but
she was badly bleeding. He checked for a pulse and she was still okay. Bleeding
badly, but okay.

Again, nobody back then had cell phones so calling for help was out of the
question. The roads were barren as it was so late at night and they were on a
highway so walking to get help was out of the question. The grandmother was in
the back seat hysterically screaming for help. Chris put her to work, asked her
to get a pillow case, put it over the gunshot wound, and then HUG her as tightly
as she could.

Chris grabbed the little girl and put her into his truck along with her
Uncle and grandmother. They rushed to the hospital, breaking every speed limit
and safe driving laws as they went.

The girl ended up being okay, thanks to Chris. Without question, he saved
her life. When Chris was at the hospital, he gave the police a full description
of the man, the car and anything else he could remember. Because he had just
gotten out of training he had the memory and details of a cop, so the police
were able to catch the guy. They actually found him in his car, under an
overpass on the interstate, RELOADING his gun to go hit more cars. So… who
really knows how many lives Chris could have saved that night!

He was later awarded a heroism award from the State of Florida for “Heroism
Above and Beyond The Call Of Duty”.

So, that was way back when. But something else happened a few years ago that I never blogged about.

It was July 8, 2005. My youngest sister, Katie, was married. Chris, the kids and I were all staying on St. Pete beach for the weekend, but we drove into Tampa for the wedding and the reception. When it was over, we drove back to our condo on the beach.

While driving back, the roads were wet... it was raining. We were in St. Pete and it was late... midnight or so. We were in the left lane approaching a traffic light that was red. In the right lane was a car already stopped. But coming up behind him was a man who had no intention of stopping.

SLAMMMMMMMM

This guy slammed right into the back end of the guy sitting at the light. WOW!! We witnessed the accident. I remember my first question to Chris "are we going to stick around for the police report?" He mentioned that it probably wouldn't be necessary. The guy in the stopped car was all the way in the middle of the intersection now, the other guy was CLEARLY at fault... no ifs-ands-or buts. And then the weirdest thing happened.... the guy in the truck that just hit the guy.... LEFT THE SCENE. He drove off through a convenience store parking lot that was on the corner (because there were so many cars now in the intersection trying to figure out what to do for the poor guy in the car).

I think it was Amanda that said "Dad, you aren't going to let him get away are you?" And with that.... we left the scene as well. We followed that guy EVERYWHERE.

I was on the phone with 911, describing the accident and the fact that the man had left the scene. It became EXTREMELY evident that the driver was SEVERELY intoxicated. He couldn't drive in a straight line... he was making odd turns, he'd go down streets and drive in people's grass, often times brushing up close to cars, mailboxes, etc. I'm sure the 911 tape was incredible. As we were on the phone with 911, Chris gave VERY detailed instructions on which way the guy was headed so that the police could find us. "He's turning North onto 22nd Avenue. He's headed East on 42nd Street." Heck, if it were me - I'd only be able to say he turned right or left -- thank goodness for Chris!

When the guy finally stopped, he pulled into a yard/driveway and smashed into a parked car. He got out of his truck and fell flat on his face. He was so drunk, he was incapable of walking at the time. It took him a little while to get up. We were on the phone with 911 and they advised us not to approach him. The guy finally got up, and went to the door of the home he crashed into, ringing their bell. The homeowners came out, but didn't know the guy and told him to leave. (Course, they might not have known that he crashed into their car on the way into their driveway!)

When he tried to get back into the truck and leave, we knew we had a problem. Chris said "I know you don't want us to get involved, but - he's trying to get in his truck and drive away." 911 told him to go and take his keys and keep him from driving, whatever it took, until the police showed up. (Oh yeah... all that time, and the police still had not shown up yet!)

Chris took the guys keys and wouldn't let him drive. Again, without question, this guy and his passenger were HIGHLY drunk. When the police showed up, the passenger took off running. But they did catch the driver.

Mind you, we were in wedding dress clothes which were a bit wet because it was raining. Pretty funny stuff.

Anyways... the police said there was "nothing they could do" about the guy who had gone running. Oh, and there were TONS of police cars, let me tell you. They had gone up and down the streets looking for the guy. We were frustrated with that answer. They were just going to give up the search? Heck, on COPS - the TV show - they would have called out the K-9 units or something. So Chris says, "I think you can look for him. He's not on the streets right?" Police officer: "Right, we've been up and down the streets looking for him." Chris: "So, he's obviously hiding in somebody's yard. Which is private property. Which makes it trespassing. Which, is against the law, right?" Police: "Uh, RIGHT!" And with that, they send more police officers out to look in the yards to try to find the guy. Don't know if they ever did find him or not.

So that ended our really weird night that night. We got back to our condo SUPER late, but we felt that we had certainly done 'the right thing'.

Then on Tuesday the phone rings at the house. A woman called for Chris, she said that her husband was the man behind the wheel who was hit from behind by the drunk driver. They were going to trial... and she had been reading the transcripts. She found his name, looked up his number and wanted to call and thank him personally for everything he did. She couldn't believe that we would take all that time and go after this guy, giving the police all that information as we went.

While they were on the phone, Chris was able to tell her all the cool details that she wasn't able to know from just reading transcripts. And it was really neat for Chris to get a call to say "thank you". I mean, you just don't get that all the time.

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The only other thing I wanted to tell you about was that we have moved the Rhocchini WOW WALL. It's no longer a physical wall in the house. It's now a virtual wow wall - on Myspace. I made a Myspace page called "WOW WALL" and once a week or so I post on there what A's the kids have brought home. If you are interested in becoming a friend of the 'wow wall' just go to my Myspace page and you'll see it's one of my top friends.

The kids are doing really well. In particular Justin - who has a VERY good chance of making straight A's this nine weeks. I just can't believe it. Chris and I are trying to figure out what on earth we are going to do for him if indeed he does make straight A's. I think what we'll do is fly him up to Maryland for Thanksgiving to spend almost a whole week with his Grandma Gwen and Grandpa Coley - all by himself. Gwen wanted me to send up all 3 kids, but this has to be a very special reward for ONLY Justin. I told Gwen I'd get the ticket and she could spoil him rotten while he was up there.

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I should run, I just wanted to post and tell you about the really cool call Chris received earlier this week.

Please keep us all in your prayers.