Durango, Anger, and Quelf

Well, the Durango is dead. Doggone-it. I am literally $200 away from having the stinkin' thing paid off and it's dead.

It's had it's share of problems. The transmission still slips... we'll get that fixed before too long. The ball joints or something like that are bad and we were going to get that fixed as well. The power steering fluid has been leaking though, which I thought wasn't THAT big of a deal. Chris replaced the hose, and it helped some - it didn't leak as much. Since we only drive the Durango when we ALL pile in a car to go places - it sits in the driveway most of the time anyways. With it leaking 'some', we just put a pan on the driveway and park over it during the week and keep power steering fluid handy for when it runs dry.

Well, the other night we took it down the road a bit - maybe 2 or 3 miles away. The thing started leaking like crazy - went through a whole bottle of fluid QUICKLY and not only that - you could smell the fluid on the engine... apparently it's now blowing it on the engine. I don't know what happened, but it's not good. So... it's parked for now.

We figure that, once we pay off the Durango, we'll keep 'paying' but send it to savings and once enough is saved to fix something - just get-er-done. One thing at a time, ya know?

But getting around as a family of 6 is a big problem right now. Thank goodness we have Michelle as a close friend who lives close by and is willing to drive us places (such as the circus and to the baptism tomorrow), because I don't know what we'd do otherwise. Michelle... you are an angel!

The funny thing is -- I thought I'd be more 'down' about it, but I'm really not. I think it's because it's SO CLOSE to being paid off that I at least have THAT WEIGHT off my shoulders. There was an article in this week's newspaper talking about car loans today and how many people are getting in so far over their heads because they are buying very expensive cars and financing them for long periods of time. One couple in the paper traded in their 2001 vehicle that they still owed $9,500 on - the car company ADDED that to their current car loan which gave them a seven-year car loan of almost $45,000. Can you imagine it? Yeah, I'm pretty happy knowing that in a month BOTH cars in my driveway... albeit not working all that great... will be OURS.

The other thing that Chris and I love about January is knowing that - because we don't have big credit cards - knowing that we roll into the new year without the worries of paying for an overzealous Christmas. Yes... we are blessed, for sure.

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I had a huge fight with Julie last night. I don't know how much of it I should go into here, in my blog. But I do feel like blogging about some of it so that you know what I'm going through here.

Julie got upset that on my Myspace page I had a box that showed a 'snapshot' of my Blog. Because she is my 'friend' on Myspace, her friends can click my picture, go to my page, see the blog picture, click it, get to my blog, and read all about Julie's life. Now, I've had this on my page since I first got Myspace, but apparently Julie was just told about it last night.

About 12:15 in the morning my house phone rings. It's Julie. She's upset... she wants that taken off my Myspace.

Now.... I could have said 'no'. But I don't blog to HURT Julie. I blog to simply release MY feelings... so that my family and my friends know what is going on in my life and in my heart. So that my friends and family can pray for me and the family in ways that appropriate with what is going on at that particular time. NOT because I want to bash Julie. Does it matter to me all that much, no, of course not.

But Julie has been in "crisis" mode for a while and as such.... she's been a big part of blogs. Heck, even before that - simply explaining WHY the kids were taken away from the home to begin with... you can't explain that without getting personal about Julie. Her actions... her inactions... her mental health.... all play a role in OUR daily lives.

So - anyways - I took the thing off my Myspace. But the more I thought about it, the more angry I got.

Those who know me know that it takes a LOT for me to get truly angry.

I got truly angry last night.

See... what all of you don't know.... what I was unable to tell you about a while ago -- in blogs when I was saying that "something big was going on and I couldn't talk about it now" -- I feel I can now share with you. See... Julie likes younger guys. Much younger. The police came to visit me once because... there was an email thread generated in Myspace where Julie was talking to a young man, talking about kissing, being 'friends with benefits', talking about wanting to get together again, and Julie giving him instruction on how to delete the messages so that his MOM wouldn't see them because they could get into trouble. Well, I don't want to get into specifics about all of this, but the end of the story as I last heard of it was that the Police determined that this kid was just barely legal age, but because of her demeanor in talking to him, they were going to monitor her internet access and track who she talked to and whom she sent messages to. Without her knowledge. Again, this kid IS of legal age. But Julie is 38 and he is young. Julie says 20 - but I'm not sure. I believe the police told me he was 18 at the time. Maybe it was 19, so maybe he is now 20. Regardless, he's so young that this young man has a TWIN BROTHER whom KAYLA was dating when she lived in Riverview. How SICK is that?? Kayla and Mom dating twin brothers? Gosh, I just vomited in my mouth a little.

So, I got really angry as I thought of THIS instance, as only I and a few others knew of this police thing. My Myspace has Christian songs, graphics, Christian videos by GodTube, very few 'kids' on my Myspace and mostly friends of mine on there. Julie.... well.... who is SHE to judge me and tell me what I can and can not put on my Myspace? Especially given what I know?

So.... I zipped off an email to her and told her what I knew. Yeah, it probably wasn't very nice of me... but I was totally caught off-guard by this after midnight last night.

I really wish she'd just STOP reading the blogs, ya know?

This morning Julie and I had a nice chat about it. What I realized after the talk is that... Julie is really mentally not right. She views teenagers as adults. Truly and honestly she does. She sees no difference between teens and adults and therefore she sees no morally wrong issues. She tried explaining about this young man - how she met him, that he wasn't mentally 'right', that she's been trying to get him to leave her alone for a while now, that she didn't really 'mean' to kiss him. He was just bagging her groceries one day and - wham. Whatever... it really doesn't matter. I kept saying "he's a kid." I understand that she's really doing the best she can with what she is capable of doing.

I tried to talk to her about getting the kids off her Myspace page. I tried to rationalize with her about not calling teenagers. For example - one 14-year-old-girl that the kids knew when Ron was alive that Julie has been trying to contact. Julie keeps leaving messages on her cell phone. Julie wants to talk to her, maybe drop by her house to see her. I asked Julie today... "Why don't you call her PARENTS and talk to them??? NOT talk to this young girl!" She didn't understand the logic in that. They 'used to be' such good friends. When Ron was alive, Julie was like a second mother to her. I said "If you were this girl's mom, and you knew what you know about YOU... your mental illness, your kids being taken away, your hurting yourself, the gang that used to live there... would YOU want your kid talking to this person on her cell phone?" Julie thought I was being mean to her. I wasn't trying to be mean... I was trying to get her to empathize with this young girl's parents. But anyways.

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I wanted to blog about this AWESOME new game we got for Christmas. Jonathan had asked that we play board games more as a family. I read online about this one woman who got this game for her family and couldn't BELIEVE how fun it was.

It's called QUELF.

The object is to move around the board landing on squares which have different colors. You land on a color, you pick up the card that has that color on it.

Blue is a rules card. Your rule could be something like "every time a non-player or any other living creature comes within 15 feet of the game board, you must viciously bark at them like a rabid hound". Or "You must pretend your seat is a toilet for the remainder of the game. Every time a player pays a penalty you must flush the imaginary toilet and vocally make a 'gurgling and flushing' sound."

Green is a Quiz card. This is just as simple as it sounds.... "Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the tallest mountain in the world?" Answer... Mt. Everest. Or my favorite: "What color is blue?" Yeah.... ummm.... blue?

Yellow cards are stunts cards. They are designed I think to just make you act silly and let everyone else laugh at you for a while. One has you crawl under the table and stay there until the beginning of your next turn. I was a human toaster once. Had to sit still and say NOTHING without laughing or explaining until the timer ran out, then shake a little stand up and yell "DING! Toast is ready!" Stunts cards had Jonathan and Chris playing leap frog by the pool on New Years Eve. Yeah.... they are fun.

Red cards are Scatterbrains cards. You get to pick between two topics then go around the table and whomever gets stuck loses. Examples: "Names of dinosaurs" - "Things that taste like chicken", "Names of movie directors", "Ways to become bloated", or the one the kids did the best with "Chores that no one really likes to do".

Purple cards are my favorite. They are Showbiz cards. They are often times "Classified" meaning nobody else is supposed to see them (unless they ask or take without asking). You will find yourself doing crazy things like close your eyes and sing "Kumbaya" until the timer runs out - WITHOUT laughing. Or, pretend you are a news anchor and you are reporting the news that your mom's underwear caught fire in the dryer. These cards have you singing and dancing like crazy... it's hysterical. And if it's classified and you pick up the card to read it when they are done (because often times you just watch as the person to your right just placed both wrists on their forehead and sang in a foreign accent words written on a card - backwards - so they made no sense. And curiosity is a KILLER, so you pick up the card to read it... and get penalized when it says "if you are the second player to read this card, go back 3 spaces". But sometimes it'll also tell you to advance spaces! So... who knows!!

The game is AWESOME, I'm telling ya. If you get a chance to get your hands on it... I say - DO IT! Your family won't believe the kind of fun you are having.

Kids in the neighborhood want to know when we are going to play next because they want to come over and play again. We have X-box, X-box 360, a Wii, and they want to know when we are breaking out Quelf, the board game. LOVE IT!

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I better run. I really should get out there and help put away yard decorations.

Or maybe I'll go Wii for a while. I've hit several 279 games (12 strikes and one 9 with a spare) and not that perfect 300. But I'm close....

Maybe if I hurry I can do both??? :o)