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 |  Pearls of wisdom, inappropriate thoughts and the occasional rant. |
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I'm not one to set New Year resolutions. I generally find them amusing and hindering. I think the last resolution I set was in 2001- To apply to the Game Warden Academy while working on my Wildlife Conservation degree. A week into January I discovered I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, Brooklyn. So yeah, I haven't really bothered with a New Years Resolution in awhile. Yet here I am considering it. I've been so scattered and unorganized over the past few months that I'm starting to have problems with time management. It seems I overcommit myself or just plain forget about things. Something's got to give. My mom bought me a huge Happy Planner for my birthday last month that begins in January. It came with some stickers and stuff like a craft project. I haven't looked at it too much, but I think I will. Maybe I can get back on track in 2019. But it's not a real resolution, just a plan to achieve my personal proclamation- To get organized so I don't feel overwhelmed and frantic when I try to fit in some time for myself. Cheers! |
| Yesterday really sucked. My coffee maker died a quick and rather loud death. Then the toilet got clogged. Well shit. After an hour of plunging and profanity, it finally worked correctly. Or so I thought. After another hour of repeating the same ritual, I threw down my gloves and called my property management company. I was told unstopping a toilet is not standard maintenance and it was my responsibility. I borrowed a toilet snake from my stepdad and tried to find a blockage, but came up empty-handed, thankfully. But it still didn't flush properly. So I called back in a panic and tearfully said I thought there must be some kind of back up because now there might be gunk coming up from my bathtub drain. That did the trick. The handyman showed up 2 hours later. He was curious about the gunk in the bathtub and I sweetly said there must have been a miscommunication. Of course, the first thing he asked me was if I had put any sanitary products in the toilet. I assured him that after 28 years of using them I knew better. Besides, I had snaked it and it still didn't work. He was pretty surprised to learn that not only do I know how to use a plunger, I can also use a snake. You know, because us womenfolk are so dainty. (My ex-husband was an OTR truck driver, so I had to learn to take care of things while he was away.) He wasn't impressed. He spent ten minutes plunging it and proclaimed it fixed. Probably just too much toilet paper because there are two females in the house. As soon as the next person flushed, it refused to cooperate so I called the PM Co. for the third time. Except now I was just pissed. Skipping the pleasantries, I demanded to speak with the leasing agent because obviously, the receptionist did not understand that I had been dealing with this since 8 AM and it was 4 PM. We only have one bathroom and four people live in my house. It was imperative that they get someone other than the maintenance man to check it out because there was no way in hell I was going to drive to my mom's each time we needed to use the loo. Once I used my Southern Bitch tone, she dispatched a plumber. Finally! After he used the plunger and the snake, he decided to replace the whole damn toilet because he couldn't find a problem. Since I've been here for nearly 4 years it was probably just an old toilet and something quit working. No shit?! Morons! I'm surrounded by morons! |
| My daughter's best friend is not who I would have picked, but that's the way it goes. They met at church 3 years ago and for some reason, they clicked. She has a lot of issues. Her home life isn't great and she's told Ravyn all kind of tales of drinking, smoking pot, and her various boy/girlfriends. Some of it is exaggerated, but I know there's some truth in there too. I have a very strict rule of getting to know parents before letting my daughter visit their house or going anywhere unsupervised. The fact that I have never once met or had a conversation with this girls mom says a lot. I've taken the girl out of state twice, only speaking with her older sister in law. Underneath it all, she's a good kid, but she doesn't have any type of guidance or support system. I'm a pretty laid back parent, but I do have rules. Over the past 3 years, Kimmie has spent more time around our family. In the summer, I drop them off at the pool twice a week. Every Wednesday night I take the girls to youth group and then she hangs at our house until ten, when I take her home. She spends every Saturday night at our house and often a night during the week too when we go to the half-priced movie on Tuesday. She takes trips with us and has adopted Nana, Aunt Angie, and Uncle Chris as her family too. She craves adult attention and eats up our family activities with gusto. Over time, I've noticed things that have really begun bothering me. Her mom's girlfriend moved into their 3 bedrooms single-wide trailer. Then her 17-year-old sister's girlfriend move in. More recently, her 24-year-old sister and her wife and 3-year-old daughter moved in, resulting in Kimmie losing her bedroom and relocating to the couch. She often wears the same outfit and flip-flops. I've had some extremely hard times in my life too, so I try not to be judgemental. The mom puts in long hours at the casino and it doesn't seem like the other adults in the house bother with things like cooking or schoolwork. She was attending an online public school, but basically, quit doing it. Now here's what broke my heart- Doing laundry Thursday, I came across the pants she had worn to youth group. They were the same ones I normally see, but they were maternity pants, tied up on the side to fit. When I asked Ravyn, she told me Kimmie's other jeans didn't fit, so she's been wearing her sister's stuff. I made a comment about her wearing flipflops in the icy weather Wednesday and Kimmie said she borrows her sister's sneakers, but showed me where they leave blisters on her feet and started bleeding, so she just prefers the flipflops. Which is no wonder because the girl wears a 13 and the sneakers are 10. I know she often goes home wearing a shirt of Ravyn's which eventually makes it back into our laundry. Now there's nothing wrong with wearing hand me downs because sometimes life is tough. Heck, I often hit the thrift stores and come across brand names in excellent condition. (Hubby hates this, but I'm a sucker for saving money whenever I can!) But seeing this girl in flip-flops and second-hand maternity pants really hit me hard. She does a lot of bragging about expensive shopping trips, which is obviously to cover up how little she has. We are not wealthy people. We're firmly stuck in the lower/middle-class bracket, but we don't go without. She'll be 16 the day after Christmas and always spends her birthday at our house where I make a fuss over it with cake a few small gifts. The other day she was talking about how many presents are already under their tree and how excited she is for Christmas. When I took her home, Ravyn went in to get some books she had borrowed. The trip home was silent. Later, Ravyn asked me if I had finished my Christmas shopping because I haven't wrapped anything yet. At first, I was going to lecture her on being grateful for what she's getting because it always seems like everyone else has a grand Christmas compared to our family. But then my dear sweet child said that there was no tree in Kimmie's house and she's pretty sure that Kimmie was lying so she wouldn't feel embarrassed. So maybe we could buy her some shoes and clothes for Christmas instead of buying anything else for herself. I've got to do something. |
| Prompt: "Note:
48-HOUR CHALLENGE : Media Prompt
Deadl..." I don't know what's going on with me lately. I'm not feeling the holidays like I normally do. I feel like I'm tottering on the edge of depression. I've been thinking about my ex-husband (whom I affectionately refer to in my blog as Jackass) more than usual. Maybe it's because we used to be great friends (after the divorce, of course) and his batshit crazy girlfriend has brainwashed him over the last two years and we don't talk or see him anymore. This song just reminds me of the terrible time I went through after we seperated. It took a nervous breakdown to make me see that I needed to file for divorce. I've really got to get out of this mood. |
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but seems to be okay today. I worry about my poor circulation, scrub my toes with a soft bristle brush, watch discoloration come and go. I probably need new arteries or veins but hey... "Heathcare" USA (enough said?). I may be better off trying something here in Thailand. But still... wish I lived in a country that had adequate patient based healthcare. Thailand and Taiwan mostly do, but I can't access it. First world systems like Europe, Canada and Australia do, but again, I can't access it. 