Quiet here

It's quiet here, which is nice. My aunt Betsy from Georgia came into town for Christmas, with her boyfriend Mark.. last night they stopped in for visitation with us, took us out to a nice dinner, and even took stephen off of our hands for a night! so we were kidless! had to go to walmart to buy soap for the showering stuff, and laundry stuff, then we came home and watched tv..the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I think Johnny Depp is just plain creepy in that movie. Then went to bed. I got up this morning and no stephen..its just quiet..too quiet maybe? I found myself talking to myself outloud just to hear something. LOL it's nice though, a nice little vacation for me for a few hours?

A drama filled Christmas

Christmas has come and gone. It was a nice Christmas. It turned out really well. Jesses kids got to have a great christmas, Stephen had a great christmas, and both my hubby and I had one. And I'm already done with putting everything away except the outside lights. All traces of Christmas is out of our house, except a few new toys that are on the living room floor that stephen is playing with.

I just want to take a minute to rant, because I was recently told not to post personal things on facebook, to write a personal diary. Technically a blog is a personal diary..I treat it like one. so I need to fill it up with a lot of curse words today.

Jesses ex totally caused a bit of a disaster during christmas. We got there with the toys, she was ticked off, her face got red, and she got all up in my face yelling to get out of her house I'm not welcome to her kids, or allowed to be on her property, she was going to call the cops if I didn't leave the property and come back at 12:30. I called her bluff and sat outside on her property in the car. she even thought she was cute by putting a tiny padlock on the sliding gate. If I really wanted to get in there its easy enough to climb the gate. Seriously now. God I wanted to go off on her so bad, but I refused to sink to her level in front of the kids.

Yesterday evening the kids called crying cause they wanted their daddy, Jesse turned the speaker phone on so I could hear her in the background telling the kids that he's not coming over. So jesse decided to just go over. proove her wrong. she called back and I answered, which lead to a good half hour of her going off on me and me going off on her, her basically calling me a horrible person because I went to charity and put her kids names on the list and took a bike away from some other poor kid. first of all, you do not need to know my finances, but you can't just walk into a charity and walk out with toys, you have to qualify for it. If they thought we were rich enough they wouldn't have given us free bikes and groceries now would they. she tried to say ALL the toys came from a charity and I was scum for passing them off as gifts from us. uhm okay..not that it's any of your buisness but I had help from my dad to get them gifts. She said jesse never used to want to spoil the kids but now every time he goes to see them he brings gifts, he never did that until he met me, she claimed I was trying to buy their love. first of all..jesse is his own man, if he buys gifts for HIS kids, thats on him. second of all, it was CHRISTMAS! of course we're going to get gifts for the kids. Then she said because every gift came from charity she was going to turn around and give them all away. You're going to take toys from your kids hands and give them away?? who does she think she's kidding?

She brought up some incident 7-8 months ago where apparently all I did was hang around outside the gate when I knew darn well I was not welcome on her property. um okay? I was picking up my husband? What else was I supposed to do, drop my car off, walk away and have him come pick me up? PUHLEASE. Then she started turning the fact that he doesn't see the kids on me, and him, and the kids are going to grow up hating their father. Excuse me? he went 6 months without seeing the kids in spite of calling her every day trying to arrange it. she's all, I did not get calls, and I have CALLER ID. like she's all big and bad that she's got caller ID, well..so do we..and I did not see her number ONCE show up trying to find out where he was.

She even brought up my MIL trying to tell me that she talks to her all the time, and Robin tells her everything about our relationship. Why does she even care, she's just the baby mama? im the WIFE. Jesse talked to his mom and his mom said she doesn't tell her nothing.

She plays her little games, gets him to go over later on at night, probably tells the kids to ask him to stay the night, then tells them he can't because he has to get home to his family. She gets him to come over, and since it's so late at night, he should just stay over. so he has to explain to the kids why he can't stay the night. making him look like the bad guy.

I've been stewing about this for a for a little bit, and I do need to sit down and talk to my HUSBAND about it. Every time he goes over there he comes back telling me how she bad mouths me and stuff, I did nothing to her, I married the man she thinks she owns, thats all I did. I think I need to talk to jesse about getting her to just shut up. Stand up to her and tell her to back off, he loves his wife, he's not leaving her, do not say one more negative thing about her in front of him, or the kids, when he comes over he wants nothign to do with her, just the kids, which is the reason he's there. cause now she's thinking she's going to bring her hatered into my house? I let her go on and on in the phone, gave it right back to her, maybe she thinks she can control this situation and she won a battle or something? but guess what honey..im still the WIFE.

I just don't understand how people can be like that? I must have had it lucky, I came from a broken home, and my dad and mom because they had me in common, so they became friends, and everything was hunky dory. She's just got this big stick shoved up her butt or soemthing. I dont know. I'd give anything to be able to have jesse let his kids stay over here, or come visit. It's so sad that I can't even get to know my own step children. My son can't play with his stepsiblings, cause even when they do get together they have fun playing. All because of one woman's twisted view of the world. I just don't get it?

So now that i've vented to someone other than my husband, im going to go finish building pirate things for my son that santa so annoyingly got him without bothering to build it for him :P

Dreams

I had some very weird very vivid dreams last night. A crappy night of sleep which I woke up like every hour it seemed like, but in between wake-ups, I had some disturbing vivid dreams. Most of them I don't remember. The more recent ones from this morning I do. I had dreams of people in my past, that aren't really connected with me, we were never friends. School mates..Some of them I didn't even really go to high school with, I think one of them I was in elementary school only, maybe middle? don't remember. Made me wonder, cause occasionally I do have a blast from the past dream, if these people ever dream of me? What do they dream? I can probably figure out the meaning of some of my dreams, like last night I had a dream that I went to Halloween horror nights at universal studios, only it was during the day, Jesse and I went, and we ran into his ex and two kids. I dreamed that he went in with them and spent the day with them, while I hooked up with my friends and wondered where he was. I think my subconscious was telling me that he'd rather be with his ex and kids than with me some times. but one of my dreams had a elementary school classmate, I think her name was Melissa, she was at my old house that I grew up in, and I was chatting with her about everything, like we were best buds. I have no idea why she even entered my dreams and why we were friends? I don't know, I know when I was in college I was taught that dreams are the minds way of getting rid of stuff floating around in our subconsciousness, but if that were true, then why dream it at all? cause i remember a lot of my dreams, so now whatever was at the bottom of my mind, is now at the top of my mind, cause it has me wondering all of this stuff. who knows? I certainly don't.

How to stop feeling guilty?

Everyone is going through tough times right now. And the amount of people who are seeking help from strangers is growing. I myself personally HATE to ask anyone for help, but when I sat down and thought about it, and wondered just how on EARTH I was going to be able to give Stephen a nice Christmas, plus my two stepchildren? I started asking for help. Some people feel like sometimes I put too much out there, on here, on facebook, in person.. I talk about how we're struggling. I reached out for help this season, and I'm proud to say that we're going to have a nice Christmas. It's all worked out. Stephen has gotten a christmas gift from two facebook friends, and an angel tree, and my neighbor. There are presents that are slowly but surely showing up under the tree, and Santa has a few more to bring us.

My neighbor was there the morning after the accident, she brought me to the wrecker to view my car, and has come over several times to see how we're doing. She brought us some beef stew one night, and lent me some laundry detergent the next. She was there listening to me freak out on the way to the wrecker about everything from rent to the job situation. And apparently she added my name to a list. She is a member of some Dolphin Club in new smyrna beach (fitting considering I LOOOOVE dolphins!) and they sponsor several families to bring food to for thanksgiving and christmas. she added my name to the list of families, she told me about it, but I wasn't expecting anything because they already reached their quota. this morning they showed up with two boxes of food, a turkey, milk, eggs, butter, all kinds of canned goods, various stuff that would make a really good christmas dinner. and a package of instant sugar cookies to bake. they also brought three presents wrapped for stephen which went under the tree, i have no idea what they are..stephen saw them otherwise santa woulda brought them.

on the 24th, we're going to the police department I had submitted stephens name for toys and groceries to the police department, they might have something for us there too..

and though things are shaping up to a really good christmas, I can't help but feel guilty, that i had asked for help, when so many more people out there have it way worse than we do..who are living in tents, or have no power, or no vehicle or no christmas tree or one present under a twig. we have a lot of stuff in this house, things that we've accumulated over the years, and that family has given to us. appearances show that we've got a lot of nice stuff, but our food cabinets are bare. our bank is empty, and bills are stacking up.. but we still have stuff..a lot of people don't have anything. ive tried selling stuff or pawning, but people just aren't buying and pawn shops are overloaded with things. I'm trying to stop feeling guilty, cause we do need the help, we weren't going to have christmas dinner until they brought stuff over. I'm trying to be thankful for everything that everyone has done for me, not just recently but ever, in my lifetime. there are just SO many people out there who need help, I swear, when we get back on our feet, next christmas my plan is to donate, I want to sponsor one family and feed them dinner, and supply some presents..I really do. hopefully we will be back on our feet. im hoping.

Netflix and other randomness

Countdown time is crunching on the day that I will suspend my netflix account. Money woes. *sigh* Me and Netflix have been on very personal terms for so many years now. And its one of the few things that kept me sane, especially during 2am breastfeeding and late nights and boredom. And now, as money is getting insanely tight, tighter than I thought possible..it's starting to look like I may have to cut back on my one splurge to myself and my family each month. Netflix has been so good to me, and continues to be so good to me, in fact, I just discovered that they are very very rapidly putting out closed caption on a lot of movies in their instant streaming movie database, and I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. but it looks like we may be parting ways, right when netflix is starting to make it to my favoritest thing ever invented. (and yes, favoritest is a word, I don't care what you say!)

One of the top things on my christmas list, and one of the things im 100% sure I will not get..a nook. I want a nook. not just any nook, but the 3g wifi nookcolor. when they first started coming out with readers like that, I scoffed and swore I would never touch it. I love my books too much, the paper, the feel, the comfort of snuggling in bed with a light and book and the smell of a new book, or used book. I love browsing a book store. but darned if I dont feel that intense feeling of total desire of want for a nookcolor. I want one. DARNIT! the convenience of being able to browse and read a book while waiting in a 2 hour line of a angel tree line would be so totally awesome. being able to put it in my purse and dragging it out in the middle of a store or whatever, to read a few lines while waiting for someone to finish shopping? I hope that people always buy paper books, but at the same time, the awesomeness of being able to get a book at the drop of a hat in the middle of a parking lot, and reading it, it's just awe inspiring.

I've been job hunting. every job searching site out there has my resume. and I haven't had any biters yet. But today something very annoying happened. I got a phone call from some lady named Deb, in Jacksonville, who wanted me to attend a interview in lake mary on monday at 9am. she couldn't tell me what the hours, or what the pay was, she could only tell me that its a sales position. It all sounded very weird, she said she got my resume off of monster.com. so as soon as we hung up, I googled it, and came across a bunch of people talking about this, turns out its a big scam. I'm like wtf? WHY!? there are so many people out there who need a job, why would someone try and take advantage of people who are really trying? what if I drive all the way out to lake mary and find a bunch of people trying to get me to give them my money to buy some sort of time share or something. i dont understand it. It's completely incomprehensible to me how someone can sink that low? I don't know. maybe ill start up a scam like that. Ill call a bunch of people with a job interview and get them to come here where ill try and get them to give me money. I'd probably get shot.

And kudos again to my mother, because I dont know how she did the whole santa/christmas thing with me around. how she managed to work a full time job, be a single mom, even when she was married to my dad, and still manage to keep me surprised on christmas morning. i have a few toys here for stephen, and I really need to wrap them, i've moved my hiding spots all around the house every so often and trying to find a night to sit down and wrap everything is impossible. she always had the coolest stocking stuffers too, and there is just NO way I can possibly live up to that. I walked around walmart 500 million times and still couldn't find the coolest stocking stuffer ever. i miss my mom, im going to miss her super cool stocking stuffers this year.

Hi, me again!

So..Christmas is on the verge of being here, and as prepared as I thought I might be, I'm not. I miss the days where I had no worries, my biggest worry was what present might Santa give me? Could I get away with eating one more cookie, and leave Santa one less? I haven't said it enough, but I really do give BIG kudos out to my mom, I have no idea how she did it. I was the most annoying greedy little girl ever, and I should apologize to my mom until my dying breath about it. I don't know how she was able to do it all, the buying, the wrapping, the hiding gifts. And I don't know if I just blocked the memories, but I have no memory of finding any presents from Santa, or being so astute to my surroundings that I questioned every little thing Santa did? Stephen has found one present from Santa, has questioned the Elf on the Shelf, and has a memory like you wouldn't believe..I don't know how I thought I could get away with passing one of his presents off as to his stepbrothers. A month after I bought it he still remembers the present, how could I possibly stick it under the tree and explain it away to Santa?

Today is my last day of peace and quiet. Today is it. Then I have a 5 year old all day long. If I end the two week period of 5 year old watching with hair left on my head, I will be very surprised. Yesterday he did do me proud though, I cleaned the living room and kitchen and mopped and swept and cloroxed my heart out, and Stephen "helped" needless to say, it might have been more productive if he HADN'T but at least he tried? I woulda cleaned more than just those two rooms if he was content with playing outside.

This month has been particularly rough on me, Christmas aside. And I am more than ready to get the year over with. I have a feeling next year won't be any less dramatic or stressful, but one hopes. Jesse (my husband) got into a car accident, with our only form of transportation. He walked away with a broken sternum, I'm happy it wasn't more serious..but my poor baby car walked away more damaged. The exterior was surprisingly good, but the engine has suffered. We needed to replace the radiator, we needed to replace the fan, we still need to fix the starter, the headlights (which work, but you have to drive with highbeams and one side is brighter than the other and the blinkers are weird), the airbag needs replaced, the seatbelts need unlocked, and we need to eventually replace the air conditioning. poor car. I love that car, she's amazing, it was the first car I bought on my own for myself that I bought because I wanted it. I had a saturn ion coupe before but it wasn't what I'd really truely wanted. my saturn vue was. The damage was minimal to what could have been done, I think she held up pretty good in the wreck. I think the accidents I've gone through with my vehicles, so far the Honda was the best, and the Saturn held her own also. So if you are car shopping, those two were commendable in a car accident. Jesse is doing okay, considering. He's gone back to work, and has been hard at work fixing the car..and he's doing it all with a broken sternum. I know that he's trying very hard, and I appreciate it.

I'm all typed out, it's cold in here, my fingers are freezing and its hard to type LOL. I will type later, I'd like to go back to blogging more on a regular basis.

Sorry!

okay..just wanted to apologize to everyone for my constant woe is me LOL i think this time of the year is the WORST. and it seems like its just harder this year than normal, because my mom wont be in town, and economicwise and all that. im trying to keep positive it's probably going to be hard LOL but im trying!

i called student loans, it just started up again..it was deferred the past six months..i cant afford to pay it right now, and my unemployment runs out either this week or december 15th..not sure, i think i might have ONE more week to claim then its done. so anywyas about the student loan.I got the paperwork for that filled out and in the mailbox ready to go, hopefully it'll continue to be deferred.

I called toys for tots to try once again to get on the list, but i think it'll probably be too late. I was hoping if i dropped my maiden name in some conversations i'll get somewhere (shame on me! but sometimes my family has influence in this town) and i just found out that my dad had invited all of my stepsisters to the margarita ball this year..which is a charity event for toys for tots where you are required to bring 50.00 worth of toys to this tux and gown event..its exclusive and invite only all the rich people go there every year. anyways my two uncles, two aunts, dad, stepmom, cousin and his wife and their 18 year old daughter, my two stepsisters and their husbands all got to go, so i figured with that many family members maybe my maiden name would be like ohh yeah they are the ones that all brought all those toys! but i got the run around and ended up having to leave another message. i bet they are swamped. the whole margarita ball thing is a sore spot. maybe dad didn't invite me because he didnt want me to stress out about a dress and buying a toy to bring or whatever. i should be used to being excluded, no matter what good intentions there are. and it kills me that at 29 years of age, things like that still hurt. thing is, i would have liked to have been asked. I do have a dress. does dad really think i like seeing him all beeming and smiley at the arms of his family while i sat at home clueless that this was even going on? i thought i was supposed to be a part of that family as well, it would have been nice to have been at least invited, if anything i coulda had the chance to say yes i'd love to go, or no, i can't right now. to be thought of is a lot better than being left out totally. whatever, ill get over it. anyways..

i called the city police department..jesse told me that they donate toys and stuff around the city..and since our city is like so tiny that if you blink you drive through it, maybe i'd have better chance than toys for tots..so the chief of police is supposed to call me back to give me details. i was gunna ask her too if i could donate stephesn toys, the old ones that he never plays with that are still in excellent shape.

so ive gotten a little bit accomplished so far today! put itn a few new job apps that i saw opened up on some of the websites i usually job hunt. i need a fax machine lol life would be so much easier.

It's looming..

Halloween is a thing of the past..Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now here we are, down to the final countdown, the big huge Mack Truck is on its way to run me over. actually it feels like it already has. it's day one of that stupid month that has come upon me way too quick. Christmas decorations are slowly but surely coming together. But I am WAY too bah humbug to care about it. I turn on the radio hoping to get into the mood, and all I want to do is throw the radio into the river. Santa Baby can just go drown himself in the Halifax River (unless he brings me all that I want..and Im not asking much..not like Marilyn Monroe was).

On the surface everything is coming along smoothly. Decorations are going up, Rocko is back (our elf on the shelf) and a few things have been bought.

I have completed some shopping. I went out on black friday not in the wee hours of the morning like some people do, but I was out. I got a few things with the few dollars I had..mostly it was for my stepchildren, not that I will get the privilege of watching them open what I so carefully picked out. Which I'm starting to get a little bit bitter about..I always have been, but I tried to stay out of it, let my husband and the ex deal with issues with themselves, cause every time I try to help nothing really happens. Apparently she doesn't want me around much, probably cause she wants to sink her ugly fat claws back into my husband again..but whatever. So in the meantime, the innocent bystanders are the children and me. They will probably think that I'm keeping their daddy away from them, and eventually come to resent and hate me (ahh..the memories of being the stepdaughter) but thats a whole other rant...the situation with the ex and kids and me and jesse.

so anyways..I did do a little shopping, got a few things for jesses kids and managed to sneak one or two small things in the cart for Stephen. nothing exciting mostly stuff that is $1, small stuff..but the way things are looking stephen probably won't get much:( but at least he'll get a few things from some family/friends. My hope though is to raise enough money to at least get one of the big ticket items on his list so that "santa" can bring him what he wants for christmas.

I had a hard thanksgiving, I spent most of it by myself cooking because jesse went to spend a few hours with his kids and stephen spent a few hours outside with the dirt. My first thanksgiving without my mom, or my dad really..it was very hard. Very emotional, I cried a lot, and while the dinner turned out pretty good, and it was a nice dinner to have as our first thanksgiving as a family, but it was sad that i couldnt see my family:( Christmas is going to be even worse for me I think. At least I'll see my dad, but it's going to be hard, and I really am not looking forward to it.

and right now, with our bank account negative, rent due today, bills all due up, and the big holiday coming up, I just want to bury my head underground and wait until january 1st comes up to surface. i'm stressed out wondering how I'll be able to buy sugar for the cookies I usually make for Christmas, let alone some 40 dollar toy stephen absolutely MUST have from santa. things will work out, they have a way of doing so, but right now i feel like im staring down a huge Mack Truck with no chance of escape. *sigh*