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