Meaningless Thoughts!!!

A quick funny story, my 4yr, myself and my parents were all in the office and my dad was playing around with the 4yr who was in a mood, and apparently had enough fun. She turns to my mom and says "Grandma your husband is being mean to me!!" I thought I was going to fall off the chair laughing, because it was no longer "Papa" he was grandmas husband.

I am trying a different aspect of things, why not, it is a new year, try new things. So, I am trying to let go more. Not an easy thing to do, but practice makes perfect I guess. Even though I try not to personally communicate with the former spouse, I rather email or page him if at all possible, letting the little things go is getting easier. I have realized most of the battles are not worth my time to fight them. Nothing is going to be accomplished after the dust settles anyways.

Our sermon on Sunday at church was interesting, instead of dwelling on the negative and what all is bothering you all the time, try stopping and thinking about what you have to be thankful for. When you stop and think about it, things to be thankful for usually out way the list that is bothering you.

The bright spot in all my days is seeing the great big smiles on the kids faces, when they have just stated their case to some kind of negotiation for something. Hard to beat a big smile!!

Wish I Knew What the Lesson Is?

Why is it that when you think things are just beginning to look up and going your way, something happens and now you have to take what feels like 100 steps backwards. With my reserve finances just about depleted, I have been scrapping by for sometime now. I have stopped everything I can possibly stop and drop. I thought I had a good chance at making my big February payments coming up with no help (House and Car), but nope my car has to die on me at lunch time today. It needs a fuel pump, which I have no choice but to have it done. The kids need to get to school I need to get to work, no public transportation in this town. So on Monday that will get fixed and hopefully life will be back to normal with me trying to figure out how to make up that money and try to get ahead again.

I am going to try to sell my stain glass pieces but I have to get them made which is time consuming at that.

Life would not be so entertaining if we knew the lessons ahead of time I guess.

An Interesting Lunch!?!

After spending the first part of my lunch taxiing one of the kids around after school, I went home and for the rest of lunch. As I was getting ready to leave a delivery truck pulls up and blocks my driveway. At first I think it is going to back up for the neighbor because he runs a construction business from his house. Then I discover that it is my address he is suppose to be at. As he is walking up my drive way I yell out the front door at him to see if he is here for my former spouses business. (Mind you my former spouse has his own side business and has not been at this address for over a year and a half.) He says yes, he is suppose to pick something up at this address, because that is the address on his printed out paperwork. I just simply inform him that the business has not been here for quite sometime, you will have to call him to get directions to where you need to be. He said that is ok, my former spouse can take care of it with the guys at the shop. Good enough for me.

Maybe I should have called him and told him what happen, but I look at it this way, if it was for something else that had the wrong address, I would not call either. Granted this may have been a slightly different situation, and it probably was an error with the delivery company, because he was picking up something that the company delivered sometime, just not to my house.

A Double Standard???

Why is it ok for the kids dad to forget something, but if I forgot the same thing I would be "branded" a bad mom by his standards. Trying to be nice in the whole situation is very tough. I am glad God has patience with me, that is for sure.

The kids spent Sunday night with their dad so he dropped them off at school. I picked them up from school and neither one had a hat on. I asked each of them were their hat was, because they go to 2 different schools right now, and they both said that dad has them, he did not give them to us. Fine I let it slide, it was a rather nice day even though the youngest is fighting a runny nose and cough right now. I did not pursue it any further. They were going back to their dads that night anyways. So, the next morning I have to pick them up at day care and drop them off at school because he was scheduled to work that day. When I pick them up, again no hats or gloves that they had with them also, and it is now snowing, blowing, and cold out. Both say that they did not give the hats to them. Granted the kids should know to put a hat on, but what kid likes a hat. Now after I drop them off at school I leave a message for the former spouse asking him where the kids hats are because I cannot seem to find them. He eventually leaves me a message saying that his wife brought the kids into town today, and she forget to get the hats they were sitting in a basket by the door. (Side note, he complains to me about the miles he has to drive to make an extra trip into town if I ask him to watch the kids for me, he works about 5 blocks from daycare, and they both drove into town that morning, she does not work in town she works in the other direction) He has got ahold of his wife and IF she comes into town today she will drop the hats off at daycare, or if he remembers he will bring them in tomorrow, otherwise I will get them back after they spend Thursday night at his house.

I realize most kids have more than one hat, mine do not normally have more than one hat around, I usually recycle them when they get a new one. Luckily I had the hats ready to go but had not taken them yet, so I was able to come up with hats for them for these 2 days. Now he is going to have 2 sets of hats to take care of. What do you think the odds are going to be that I get both back. If I did not send the kids properly dressed they would note it, so they can show that I do not take care of them, or I would have been expected to meet him somewhere to get him the hats. But, to him it was like oh well, it happens.

Good thing the kids have not been going outside for recess for some reason, because if they do not have hats and gloves they can not go out.

I will have to admit, that I have not pursued the issue hardly at all. I have just let it go and moved on, as hard as that has been to do.

Stainglass Fan Lamp

Here is a couple of pictures of a fan lamp that I made this weekend. I do not normally use that kind of base for them, I like the oak ones. Do to a time constraint this is all I had to work with, my bases that were on order arrived today. My dad and I are going to make our own bases, that will cut down on the costs, when I start selling them. The base used here is a die cast antique brass looking one. It is ok, but I do not have a lot of room to work with if the glass does not fit into it.

I like this pattern I have done it a couple of different times. This is the second time I have done the ribbons with so many different colors. I have also done it with just two different colors as well. Both looked good.

Is it just me?!!

It has been an interesting weekend to say the least. I had the kids Friday night and Saturday morning because he was not getting back into town unto late Friday night. He and his wife went to Vegas....He doesn't think I know where he went...I have a 6yr I know where he went. Anyways I asked him when he was going to pick them up on Saturday when he asked me if I could watch them for him. He said "OH, 10am." That was fine with me, of course I am always being accused of not letting him see the kids more, but that is a different story right now. So after he shows up late on Saturday morning, of which I did not say anything about the time because that would be a waste of my time and I would have to listen to some bogus excuse anyways I opted not to bring it up, I gave him a few instructions/directions/information about the kids.

One was to give the youngest a certain kind of medicine to dry up her nose, she will stop coughing if you dry up her nose. He agreed that does the trick and has done that before....Fine. There are papers for him in one of the suit cases. The oldest has a small book in her backpack that she needs to read and turn in on Monday so she can get the next book and move on with her reading skills. This book is not long and will not take very long for her to read it to you. She does need to read it word for word in order to pass it and go on to the next book. "OK" he says.

So, I pick the girls up from school today, and the oldest still has her book with her. "Why didn't you get the next book today?" I ask. "Because I didn't get to practice this one!" she says. Now I am a little mad. I called and talked to the kids on Sunday afternoon and asked if she had read it and she said no, but at least it is in her mind now to do that. Apparently there was no time for him to sit with her and read about 6 pages that had about 4 words on each page. I just do not get it.

Everytime we get into a discussion, I usually end up with something from his wife telling me what a great dad he is and that they have family time and this and that. Of course I do not believe anything she says now, and have not believed much that he has said long before I divorced him. It was a little book how hard is it to sit down with your daughter and go over it. She just started these when he was in Vegas, you would think he would have a little interest in her. May be it is just me, maybe I am looking about this all wrong. I know I can not make him a great father, and that is probably part of the issue here.

A better week?!?

I will have to admit this week has been some what better than last week. It probably has to do with the fact that I know my former spouse is out of the state, so I do not have to wonder if he is going to call and say that he is going to pick up from school today because he is in town and has time on his hands, so why not spend it with his kids (rarely happens anyways).

My badly cut(more like deeply punctured) finger is coming along pretty well now. I can at least stretch out my fingers with out it bleeding again. A stitch or two might have helped, but the scar will do for now. The true test will be Sunday when I bowl for the first time since it happened. Cutting things with a knife is still quite a challenge and painful, which means cutting glass is also a problem. This is not good because I have a few projects that need to get done and am almost at deadline now. Should be an interesting weekend, and probably a slightly painful one there as well.

It has been fun with the kids this week, my 6yr reads me a book from school everyday. She has to read it perfectly before she can take it back and then she has to read it to her teacher as well, or it comes back home to work on it some more. She is so excited about reading now.

They both are looking forward to being able to paint tonight. Not my favorite past time for them, but they enjoy it. Now, it is not so bad, not as messy as before.

Whose World is this?

After the kids weekly program at the church on Wednesday night, we were driving home after a brief stop at my parents house, and my 4yr says "This is God's world isn't it?" I reply back "yes, this is God's world!" She says "God owns everything doesn't he?" "Yes, he owns everything!" was my reply back. Now she is talking on about how this is god world, and the he owns this and that, and this, and that, as she is naming off everything she can see at the time. Then I hear, "Yep this is God's world, not Wayne's World, God's world!"

I am not sure where the Wayne's World came from, but it was hard not to laugh at her sitting in the back saying it was not Wayne's World.

High Road closed for construction?!?

Well, it has been a long tiring weekend for me. I left right after work and took the kids up to my sisters to celebrate the 4yr olds birthday with my family. My niece is just 6 months younger than my 4yr so they are almost like sisters as well, except more possessive of their prized possessions....lol. Anyways it was nice to get away from all the crap I put up with from the ex, actually from his wife because he had absolutely nothing to say to me about anything that went on. He had no comment on the lack of communication that he displayed in changing things around because that is what she wanted to do, and he had no comment on anything that she told me afterwards in lovely emails that she sent me. I really did not even want to get on the computer for awhile, which if you know me is a major issue, I am always on the computer and online.

After going with my sister to pick up the birthday cake and lunch, and just getting out for a bit was a nice change of pace. Could be that is was because there was snow on the ground as well, although not enough to go sledding which we usually do for this birthday party. After lunch the presents finally got opened, and an excited 4yr was so happy to get all the stuff she wanted for her Dora Talking House, and mom opened up all the stuff for the kids to play with, they had a blast, I took the house up with me so they could all have fun. My niece was not happy that the house and stuff were not staying there when we left though. So we are all on a mission to get everything for her 4th birthday this summer. Was not an easy task a few weeks ago, but we do not have the time crunch that we had a few weeks ago either.

I finally ask my sister if I could get online to check my email, she has slow dial up as well, so I had to wait to get everything downloaded, so my nerves were not the greatest by then. It was a relieve to just see emails from my friends and not from the ex or his wife. I sent a quick Thank You to someone for chatting with me on Thursday after all the stuff had gone down and it was nice getting a response back. Sometimes I think I am on the wrong track, and it is nice to know that I am not the one on the wrong set of tracks.

If I did not have to run the computer at church on Sunday I do not think I would have gone, which is sad, because I hardly ever miss for a lame excuse like that. And all this still bugs me, people could tell something was up on Sunday at church, but things will get better. I hope they start getting better soon, I am getting tired of the tension headache I have had all weekend and still have today.

This week may be a busy one for me, I have the kids all week because he is out of town on "vacation" so I should not have to worry about him this week. I have to give up a few of my stuff because I have the kids but that is fine with me, we will have a great week this week.

I know I have not forgiven him for much that he has done, and frankly I am not interested in working on that anytime soon. I was hoping to be able to work on it now, but I am going to focus my attention else where for awhile. Believe it or not I have to work on forgiving my younger sister for being stupid, and I am going to work on that right now instead. Someday I will get back to forgiving the ex, so I can fully move on with my life.

Pot Holes on the High Road!!!

This morning I received a nice email from the former spouses wife saying that she would be glad to take care of the girls for me for a few hours on the 2 days I had asked for. She said that she knew that must have been a hard thing to do, and that God is probably happy I did it know, (Not commenting on that) and that she has never intended to be mean or a -----(rhythm's with itch). I sent a nice email back to her, letting her take the girls out to dinner afterwards, and that I never said she was mean or the other, and left it at that.

An hour later I take the sprout to the doctor to see how far we are off the chart at 4yrs of age we are. Still off the chart, height at 4yrs 43" can you say sports scholarship...lol. I will not push for that, I had one and gave it up after I got to college, I have my degree and no regrets for doing it. Anyways I am chatting with the billing person and checking on the kids accounts which I am technically not responsible for, in that they are not in my name, but I have to pay so much before ex's has to. The lady tells me that she got a call from his wife saying that they need to bill me for everything. Now my blood pressure is rising quickly and I am not a happy camper anymore. After the appointment I go back to work and fire off a no holds bar email to the ex knowing that he should see it today because he is working and that seems to be the only time he sees his email....he does not work everyday he has a rotating shift. After lunch I have an email from the wife and she is not pleasant this time. Of course being the almost computer hacker that I can be I notice that she is replying to an email that he has sent to her, most likely my colorful one. After she goes on about how I need to get my life in order, and how can I afford to do things when I do not pay my bills until I feel like it. If I cannot take care of the kids then why don't I just give them to him to take care of....blah blah blah. I am really not a happy camper now, with lots more emotion to go with it.

All my bills are paid, even the ones that they held for 6 months and then sprung the $200+ bills on me at once with no explanation to them, I paid them off in 2 months. I have no problems taking care of the kids, I get them to and from school everyday, with breakfast on top of that. They have a roof over their head and food and beverages in the fridge on top of that. They each have their own bed to sleep in and plenty of clothes to choose from for the day. They even have shoes and snow boots just in case for some odd reason we might get snow in January this year. So, after talking to a few people, my younger sister who is divorced twice, and I really do not like talking to her at all...(long story), my mom since my sister was kind enough to call and tell her I was not in a good mood, and my counselor, who I will have to admit is right all the time....(I hate when she is right by the way....LOL)I decide to call the former spouse and chat with him at his work. After discussing a few things then asking about the bill issue I get "I thought I told you that?" I have a memory like a steal trap, not much gets past it. If I knew that do you think I would have fired off a colorful email telling to grow a pair of somethings and take responsibility for stuff. It was a nice conversation, not heated at all, lots of long pauses from him, but that is for him to deal with. I did end by telling him that he needs to own up to his stuff and make things right.....I am not holding my breath on that either. I did not respond back to her email, and right now do not plan on it, but you never know what mood I will be in later...lol.

Good thing I am going to be listening to the last 2 weeks of sermons from the church tonight to put on the website. I need some faith tonight and some aspirin for my small headache that can explode into a big headache if it wanted to.

I took the high road, and now that there are pot holes do I still continue, or take back the offer for her to watch the girls, which she mentioned that she would still do it since she already committed to it. Do I wait until the road is fixed, or just find a new route. Working on forgiveness today just does not seem very important anymore, but I know it is still necessary in order for me to move on.

An Olive Branch

I gave in today and offered an olive branch. I emailed my former spouses wife, who is one of the reasons for my divorce, and asked her if she would be willing to watch the kids on a couple of different days for me. He will be on duty those days, and I already have a commitment on those days, but can break my commitment if need be. It was the hardest thing I think I have ever had to do. Mostly I think because I have not forgiven him for all that he has done. I am working on it, but that just is not an easy thing to do for some reason. Guess now I wait and see what kind of a response I get back or if I even get a response back at all. Patience is not one of my better virtues.

A Happy 4 year old!

Today is the big day, my youngest FINALLY is 4. She could hardly wait til she turned 4 for some reason. This morning she got to open up gifts from her sister and I, because they are going to be at their dads tonight. She was excited about all the stuff she got. I love her smile. She got stuff for her Dora talking doll house that she got from Santa, but apparently santa didn't realize it had accesories that went with it. She was excited about the stuff, but says I need the rest of the stuff and listed all the accesories off that she needs. The hardest part for me is not telling her that she is getting all of it for her birthday, at her party this weekend. I managed to find all of the stuff and then some this weekend during a 3 hour shopping spress to about 6 different stores on Saturday, and one purchase from ebay for the discontinued item. It will be so much fun when she gets all of it, I cannot wait...lol. I tried to get her name on the radio birthday list for this morning, but apparently technology let me down, and she did not hear her name this morning which now I have a pissed 4yr and 6yr, so I had to call the radio station and get them to put it on, of which they put the whole conversation on the air, now I am pissed.....lol. Oh well, the kids were happy after that, and that is what counts to me right now.

Tag I am it

I finally have the "privilege" of responding to a tag by one4jc....Now that I can get back online finally...

So here it goes...

Five snacks I enjoy:

1. Reese Peanut Butter Cups

2. Pocorn

3. Any Kind of Chips

4. Pretzels

5. Eddy's Ice Cream Dips

Five songs to which I know all the words:

1. None that I can think of

2. I love to listen to music

3. but do not sing to it that much

4. (Trying to spare the world from that disaster.....lol)

5. I am terrible at the who sings this song game....

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire:

1. Pay off all my debts

2. College fund for the kids

3. Buy a new house

4. Invest some of it

5. Go to work and not do anything, for I would not care anymore, not that it is different now, except I do not have the money now.

Five Bad Habits:

1. Not Filing papers at work

2. Procrastination

3. On the computer to much instead of other things that need to be done

4. Not folding clothes

5. Tossing recycle stuff in the trash instead of the recycle bin

Five things I like doing:

1. Dinner time with my kids

2. Playing on the computer

3. Bowling

4. Playing Golf

5. Making Stainglass Pieces

Five things I would never buy, wear or get new again:

1. Anything that has to do with fire stations (toy fire trucks, firefighter figurines...etc...)

2. Mickey Mouse Motif Moo Moo...(Don't Ask.....LOL)

3. Spandex

4. Cigarettes or cigars

5. Cows or Horses

Five Favorite toys:

1. Computer

2. Palm Pilot

3. Dora the Talking house...(The kids got it for christmas and I sit and play with them)

4. Gameboy Games

5. Puzzles

And the challenge passes to ......No one all the ones I know have already done it...SORRY....I live a sheltered life...LOL

Stepping out of my comfort zone

After work last night I decided to go work out. I did not have the kids, their dad had them and was going to take them to their swim lessons last night, which is where I was going to work out as well. I stopped in to watch the youngest swim for a bit then I went and workout, by myself. I hate working out by myself. It is just about the most uncomfortable feeling for me, but I put my mind to it, and went ahead and did the work out. After I was done I was glad I did finally go, and have plans to go again soon by myself. I do not like going when I have the kids. I hate putting them in the child watch when they have been in daycare all day. So, I just try to go when I do not have them, which is not often, but often enough. Afterwards, I went home to get some stuff done around the house, but was just to tired to do any of it. I hate not having the kids around still, I cannot get into any kind of mode to do anything. I just waste the evening away, and struggle in the morning to get up and around for the day. I am up around 5am or so when I have the kids. Just another thing to work through in time. Have to take one step at a time to get through this world these days.

Born to eat pickles!!

As I was taking the kids to their church function Wednesday night, they were sitting in the back of the car eating their happy meals. The youngest after have gone through half of her cheesburger discovers that it has ketchup on it. HEY! I didn't want ketchup on my cheesburger, (which is the way it comes all the time for her). So needless to say mom finished the other half of the sandwich and she was happy with the fries. So now the two of them are chatting back and forth to each other and the oldest says I have pickles on mine, and the youngest says I do not like pickles. The oldest says I was born to eat pickles, that is why I like them. You were not born to eat pickles, but I was born to eat pickles. I like pickles, but I did not know I was born to eat them....lol.

Reflections from the season of giving 2005

As I was driving home tonight from spending the holiday weekend at my parents, and the kids asleep in the back of the car, I realized the true meaning of the season of giving (Christmas). For I received a lot of that giving this year, not that I really wanted to experience it, but looking back I am glad I have the family that I do have. Many years ago when my younger sister got divorced with a child much younger than mine now, my other sister and I bought some gifts and had one of her friends deliver them to her so my niece would have a nice Christmas that year. We all remember waking up to a nice Christmas every year at our house, and wanted to make sure that she had that as well at the time. A few years ago I got a nice bonus check, so I bought some stuff for the daycare and delivered them on Christmas eve to her, she was a single mom at the time struggling along to make ends meet with her daycare to support her. Well this year was my second year of Christmas as a single mom, almost 14 months since my divorce was final, and what a year it has been. It has been a struggle at times for me, but the kids always had clothes on their backs, and a roof over their head, and warm food in their bellies everyday. We were able to take a vacation this summer, it may have only been to the family cabin on the lake, but it still was a get away for awhile. Then Christmas comes along, and I have know idea what I am going to get them for Christmas, let alone figure out how I am going to be able to pay for it this year. I really did not want to use my credit card, it was already high enough from having my car worked on numerous times this year. Last year I got a Christmas bonus from work so that helped me through, but this year no bonus. My dad owns his own electrical company now, and my younger sister is practically his only employee, until she tore up her knee then a friend of hers and my dads helped him out for awhile until she got back on her feet. Well they had a Christmas party and mom invited me to go along, I think because she didn't want me staying home by myself that night. I decided to go, I think I pick up some supplies once for them anyways...:) We all had a nice time, I knew that dad was giving out bonus checks to my sister and the other helper, and my niece even got one, and I was ok with that, because I really was just along for the ride and a nice dinner at the restaurant. I was telling my mom at the restaurant that I really did not want to go shopping the next day because I had no money to buy Christmas gifts for the kids, and that was the whole reason for going shopping. My younger sister was going so she could spend her bonus money, and I really did not want to go. A week before Christmas and I have nothing for the kids. I spent the night at my parents house that night which I had not planned on doing because I had a meeting early the next morning and did not bring any clothes to change into for that. In the morning I got up early to go home and change before I met with my friend for a bit, before heading back up past my parents house to go shopping, nothing like a cross country adventure planned for the day. Well my mom wanted to ride with me while I met with my friend which was fine, and on the way down she hands me check and tells me that I need to stop at the bank before going shopping to cash it. The hardest thing I ever had to do was take that check! She says she and dad had been talking about giving me and my sister who got the bonus money this year because we are just a single income family. Whether that is true or not I do not know, my younger sister lives off of my parents anyways as much as she can, but that is a whole different story and probably a whole different blog of its own....:) So, the kids had a nice Christmas at my house. On New Years weekend my family had our Christmas that weekend. We draw names for stocking stuffers for the adults, and everyone pitches something in for the kids socks. This year we did not buy gifts for the adults, we donated all the money to charity instead, and just bought for the kids. Well my brother-in-law drew my name for stocking stuffers, and I got two gift cards in it, one was to a department store in my area that has everything in it, like Wal-mart but it was not for Wally world, and another one from a clothing store that I like but don't go there a lot, only when I need something nice at the last second to wear for some occation coming up. I had no idea how much they are for, but later found out that one of them is probably worth 3 digits. I was not expecting that answer at all, but apparently he got a nice size bonus check and that is what he wanted to do with it. This from a guy who is going to be a dad again this summer and remodeling to do before the big event. My heart was truly touched this year. I have given lots of years, and I guess, I just never thought I would ever be on the receiving end.