I love being a twin.....

Sunday I went to my twin sisiters church for my nephews dedication. All of our family on my side were there except for my sprouts, and some of my brother-in-laws family were there as well. I think there were 15 of us total. We arrived a bit early for the second service which is when the dedication was going to be. So I headed down the one hallway and this lady smiles at me and I knew then she thinks I am my twin sister. She says Good Morning and I play along, because that is the fun part of being a twin for me. :) I come back and my mom steps up to me and tell me that the lady did indeed think I was my sister. My sister was in the first service with her daughter. The first service is a childrens service.

Late on while we are waiting for the first service to exit the sanctuary another lady steps up to me and asks me to confirm that my nephews name is spelled correctly on this paper that she put in front of me. Of course I confirm it and then say that I am not his mother however, but I will play along for fun.

We finally take our seats in the sanctuary and another lady steps up to me smiling, but has a confussed look on her face. I finally answer her unasked question, and say I am the twin sister. She finally laughs and wondered because she thought my sister had darker hair. She does, we have the before and after pictures from hair coloring. I have the before look and my sister has the after look. I keep telling her that when she finds a color I like, then I will color my hair. Truth be told I have colored it a couple of times, but honestly have better places to use the money it take to color my hair.

Needless to say I enjoyed my Sunday Morning.

Benefit WHO?......

I wish I knew the exact rules of my ex's game..... I called him Wednesday afternoon to see if the youngest sprout has practice. I do not have the number of the coach, and ex is an assistant coach for that team. No practice due to the rainy weather, I figured as much, but it has been know to rain in my town and not the town where practice was to be taking place. I am in a good mood now because we can be to church on time tonight, another one of those in two places at the same time nights. Before I end the conversation with him, he asks me if it will be ok for him to drop off the sprouts an hour earlier on Saturday morning, because his wife is having surgery and has to be an hour away at the time he normally drops them off to me. The only reason I was having the sprouts on Saturday was because he was to be working that day, so I get them when he is working, but now he is not working because of the surgery on Saturday. Not sure about you, but I have never really heard of scheduled surgeries on a Saturday, but that is not my problem. He asked me, if I wanted him to ask his mom instead to watch the sprouts or not, but I should have already had plans for them. I told him that was his call. If he wanted to ask his mom fine, if he wanted to drop them off early fine. He knows that I would have picked them up the night before because we just got done arguing over that with the lawyers a month or so ago. He decides to drive 13 miles out of his way to drop them off by 6am which means they get up around 5 - 5:30am.

I am ready for the day when the sprouts arrive at the house. I finish up a few things, and take them out for breakfast. We do not go out for breakfast very often. They had a great time. I went into work for a few hours, and they had a nice time watching a movie in my office as well. They enjoy hanging out in my office. We head home and since it is a nice day out. We spent the entire day outside. I worked in the yard and they played with everything possible that we had to play with. I tried to get them to take a nap, but was not successful.

The ex called me around 4pm and wanted to know if it would be easier for me if he picked up the sprouts tonight instead of in the morning. That way they could get to sleep in. I told him no that would not be easier, and they could have slept in this morning if he would have let me pick them up the night before. I had to break the silence on his end by asking him yes or no. He just said that he was planning on having them sleep in. He just wanted to sleep in and not have to get up to pick them up at their normal time at 7am. That is when he picks them up the next day when he gets off work. I had to be ready early anyways to head up to my sisters for my nephews dedication at church, and I did not have the laundry done to have the sprouts clothes packed for the next few days at the dads anyways. So, they spend the night with me.

I finished the yard work and we got everything put away. We cleaned up for dinner, and headed out for a bit to eat. After dinner we layed on the couch and watched a movie for all of about 15 minutes, they were passed out then. Which I knew they would crash early as well.

I got up early in the morning Sunday morning and did a few loads of laundry and got the sprouts clothes packed and ready for when their dad arrived. They were already to go when he pulled up to the house. The wife was with him as well, that was a surprise to me, since she just had surgery the day before. They were off and I was on my way as well to my sisters.

Freeing up the schedule....

Thanks to the rain which should be sticking around all day, I should not have to worry about trying to be at two places at one time tonight. The sprouts Wednesday night activities are ending tonight for the remainder of the school year. So we should be able to make the awards night on time, since I am sure ball practice for the youngest sprout will be cancelled. I will be the last one to find that out today. I always look forward to having my spring and summer evenings free with the sprouts. They love being outside. Next week I am kind of hoping it rains on Tuesday night, so that I do not have to worry about being at two places at once. I am ending my one and only night activities to myself until fall.

New Treasures and Memories.....

I was cleaning out some boxes that I moved out of the sprouts rooms almost a year ago to paint. I finally got tired of them sitting around the house. They contained some of my "treasures" from many moons ago, and some items that were obtained through out my marriage way back when as well. Some of the things I decided to keep, most though will go out with the trash later on this week. What perfect timing, it happens to be city wide clean up this week, so everyone had their junk out for others to seek out their treasures. Some of the stuff that I pitched could have probably been placed on the curb for others to discover their treasures, but I just decided to pitch them. There was only one item, that I waivered on briefly, but only until I reached the garbage bag.

Some may be asking why I did not ask him if he would like the stuff. My theory is this. He has been gone for over two years. If he really wanted it, he would have asked by now. I have delivered some things to him within the past year, because I really was not comfortable with tossing them. I was comfortable with tossing these items.

I do not toss pictures, and I came across a few of them this weekend as well. Some of the pictures were of the two of us before we were married. After thumbing through them for a bit, I boxed them back up and they will head to storage with the rest of my stuff. Some day I will weed that stuff out.

Speaking of weeds, I finally hacked down the jungle, commonly know as my front yard this weekend as well. After two passes with the lawn mower, the sprouts could finally play in the front yard without me having to go find them. :) That also made it easier for me to puts a few items out to the curb for city clean up days as well. My items were gone this morning when I woke up, I did hear a few of the items go around 1am when everyone else were out doing their "shopping" and had no consideration for the time of night that they were out and about. At least this time, they left most everyone else's stuff on the curb if they did not want it. Usually they sort through the piles of stuff and leave half of it in the street. That makes for interesting travels to work in the morning. My neighbor, mowed his yard as well, except it was just enough area to put his treasures out. Apparently appearance of your yard is important, when placing your trash to the curb. I only mowed to keep the sprouts visible.

My great morning part 2......

Well after arriving late to work, I get and online chat message for the ex's wife. Amazingly enough that did not surprise me. I knew she would try to contact me after everything that went on this morning. This time I just chose not to respond back AT ALL. That did not stop her from sending lengthy messages though. My favorite one was this one, I edited out the names... "I am really working on getting (ex spouse) to just talk with you but as you can see not much success on my part. I am sorry for that. I will keep working on him. He is a great guy, just short on talking with you, but I think he has always been short on talking with you."

Yep, he has always been short on talking period and now she has that figured out. Of course she wrote this... "I would really like some good communication between everyone." before she sent the previous message. All I can say is that we do not always get what we want out of life now do we. I am not going to be the great communicator with her...yes, my life may have a few less bumps in the road if I go through her since he does not communicate well with me, but I am not going down that path. When she tells me what I have to do for the sprout for a school field trip that they signed everything for sprout to attend, I draw the line. They did everything without notifing me of it, but now I have to provide everything for it. Now there is great communication between everyone.

I still talk to him about the sprouts schedules and I get with him on whether he is going to be taking them to the ball practices that they signed them up for or am I going to have to do it because he is to busy on his day off to do so. Some of those questions I have answers to some he still has to get back with me, after he checks the calendar. Which usually means, when I get back to my full time job in two days to get on that computer to check that calendar because I only have dial up here at the house and do not want to wait that long to check the calendar here. If I am lucky I will not have to remind him of it. I never have been that lucky of a person. But I am just so blessed to have communication from the wife and not the ex spouse.

I was even more thrilled when my youngest sprout informed me that her sister told the wife that I do not buy anything for them, I always just spend my money on me. Not sure where that came from, but that one really hurt. Considering that I just bought them summer clothes, and roller skates, and ball equipment for the summer as well. I did by myself a new bowling ball a month ago, as for clothes I have not bought a new outfit in probably 3 years. At least not with any of my money. My family usually gives me gift cards at Christmas for me to buy some clothes with. I still have some yet to spend. I have not decided how to approch that issue yet either. I probably will just let it be between the youngest and myself right now.

I Can not do it!!!!

I can not deal with a 40yr guy that has no control of his life! I am at a complete lost on how to deal with the sprouts dad. He asked me to switch weekends a few weeks ago. The weekends he wanted to switch are coming up in May. Him thinking that far ahead if a major feat in itself, because I can never get him to tell me whether he can watch the sprouts in a couple of days without having him get back with me because he has to look at the calendar first. Anyways, I orginally I told him No on the weekend switch because the girls had a year end church picnic that weekend, and they have been looking forward to going to it for a long time. They have missed the last two because they were with their dad and he would not take them. He said that he would put it on the calendar and take them. Yeah, right! He is taking the sprouts to INDY that day and I know they will not be back in time for the picnic. They are going to be taking his wifes daughter, husband and two kids to the airport because their furlough is over and they are heading back into the mission field. Of course he says he is preparing the sprouts in that they may not get back until late, which the oldest says that it will be ok to go to the picnic late. She does not realize that late means not going. I confronted him with that this morning when he called me to tell me that the oldest was not going to school this morning. Another issue I am not going to get into. Apparently she was not feeling well. I am not there I can not make that decision. I did talk to her for a bit. She brought up that she wants to go to florida over next spring break with her dad instead of spending spring break with me. GREAT!!! NOT!

You see back in March, he and I sat down to discuss the sprouts and he asked me then if he could take the sprouts to florida next spring break. I told him NO that was my year to have them for spring break and I already have plans for them. I would have changed my plans to this year, but this was his year to have them for spring break, and I was not going to interfere with his time. Which he did not take them for the week, this year. He asked me what I had planned for them, and I told him. Well the next day the sprouts got mad at me, and wanted to know why they had to go to Pennsylvania, which is where I was going to take them. I was mad because I knew he told them, because he was the only person that knew the spring break plans. When I called him up he said that his wife must of said something and that he was sorry because he did not think she would say anything to the sprouts. Well this morning when I was talking to the oldest, I was informed that they want to go to Florida for spring break next year. Wonder who put that in her head again. Of course when I asked him about it he said that the sprouts brought it up. NOT without some coaching I am sure of that. I love being made to be the bad parent by his wife.

My youngest who is 5, is now complaining because I get her hair cut all the time, and that she wants it to grow out long. One of the reason is because his wife is growing her hair long, and she use to have long hair before, treatment of cancer. I have told my youngest, that when she can take care of her hair and brush it herself then she can have her hair long, until then if I have to do it, it will be short, because it does not tangle as bad then.

My life just seems to be a game of not knowing the rules that he keeps changing on me.

I so miss.......

.....people with common sense. :) The school systems these days are so not right. Mind you that yes I did attend a public school and there are many educators in my family and in the ex's family as well. I grew up and went to school in a different state. There were no book rental fees when I went to school. The schools had to go to the tax payers for more money. Which was interesting at times. I have a first grader and have to pay around $380 for lunch and book rentals this year for just one child. As a single parent of two children that is a big stretch for me right now. Yes, I finally have gotten some of that money from the ex, after I had to drag him to court for it, so needless to say it cost me a lot more to get a few bucks from him. I supposedly make to much to get assistance from the school as well. Funny thing about that is, a friend of mine went to sign up a child for school and since she was in between address because they were building a home. The school listed them as homeless, and since they were "homeless" then they could get assistance with the school fees, just like that. I thank god for the roof he has put over my head, and the struggles he has chosen me to endure.

I so miss my venting specialist. Only because it was nice just to chat about the fun and games that I have to play with ex, and he has the rules and I get to figure them out before he changes them on me. Of course the vent specialist would be right about things and then I would have to admit that she was right. I really hate when that happened. :) The ex and I have been in a stalemate for a bit on a field trip for school, for the oldest sprout. They turned in all the paperwork and everything long before they even notified me that there was even a field trip happening. Of course I am to pay for said field trip of sprout, and still have yet to receive any information on it. SO, I will have to go have a chat with the teacher soon, and change some ways that the school information is set home. Normally I get the papers and he gets a set mailed to him from the school per his request to the teacher. He use to give me all the papers if he had the sprouts that evening. Except I never saw that paper, and since he apparently is going to pick and choose what papers I get, guess I will have to make sure they do not go home with the sprouts on his evenings. I have not figured out a better way yet. He did admit that they got the information, and that was it. I love this game of life.

Two places at the same time.....

I never did figure out how to be at two places at one time last night, so I improvised. I took my oldest to her ball practice which got over a half hour later than the start of my bowling league. I figured if I drive fast enough I could make the last two bowling games of the night. I was 45 minutes past the league start time and they were already into the second game. I did make it by the third frame and the other team did allow me to bowl the last two games. We lost both games, of which I threw over my average, and they won the first game which I was not there for and had a score of ten below my average. Just does not add up. Oh well. I managed to get both in and didn't even get my blood pressure up that much in doing so. I did have to take the sprouts with me to bowling which usually ups my stress level, as they like to push all my buttons and forget all of the rules we discussed in the car on the way there, but over all it turned out to be a good evening. I only have to do that one more time. Hopefully my mom will be available to help me out then.

Spring is a scheduling nightmare.....

With the summer ball season coming up for the kids, comes practices now. So now I have to work around gymnastics, church activities, end of school activities, various medical appointments and ball practices, which is actually three different days because they are on different teams this year, and the oldest get to practice twice a week. Along with my last month of bowling and 6 more weeks of teaching/facilitating a class, there is not much time between any event right now.

Luckily, the sprouts dad is willing this year to help out with getting them to their ball practices, something that has not happened the last two years, unless it fell on his night to have them during the week, so that is a little relief. I only have to figure out how to be at two places at once on a couple of days that he is at work, and unable to leave.

I will leave you with a little phrase I use at work: "The difficult we do immediately the impossible just takes a little longer"

What A Weekend.......

At the beginning of last week, I had nothing big planned for the weekend. A conversation with the former spouse changed all of that though. Yes, we communicate a little more now. Last weekend was his weekend to have the sprouts. I was going to have them on Sunday because he had to work, and when he has to work I get the sprouts for the day. He wanted to know if it would be ok for the sprouts to spend Saturday night at his parents house. His mom has been wanting to have them for quite some time, but apparently they could not get there schedules worked out to make that happen, or someone (adult not sprout) has been sick. So, I was more than happy to let them spend the night and most of the day Sunday with the grandparents. It was the first full weekend to myself this year.

Now the dilema came as to what to do for the weekend. On Tuesday, I thought it would be fun to redecorate one of my bathrooms. No sprouts, No problem. I told my mom what I was going to do, and she got on my dad to come down and fixed the toilet. It had a tipping issue, which it has had long before I was divorced. Now was the perfect time to pull it and figured out what it needed. Turns out it needed a complete base for the bolts to function properly. So he pulled that on Saturday and put it back on Monday. The plumbing supply place was closed, until Monday, for the parts that we needed. I already had the room cleared out and all the stuff off the walls, when my dad says "Would you like a switch to turn these 2 lights on and off at once?" He is an Electrican so that was a piece of cake for him. The problem lied in the fact that what I want does not always happen in the time frame that I need it to. I said sure are you going to do it before I paint. Yep, he got it done and changed most of the wiring there as well, he was not happy with who ever did it, some 20+ years ago, before I even moved in. He hooked up a little light for me to see better since most of the light fixtures had to come done to be able to paint. I was all set.

Saturday morning, I started taking off the very old wallpaper and border that was on some of the walls. Got the walls ready for primer and paint. I quit at about 3:00am Saturday night/Sunday morning with not all the walls primed yet. I have a deep closet in this bathroom that took most of my time and the ceiling as well. I know some of you may not even have bothered with the closet, who is going to see it anyways. Well the last people that had the house had that attitude and it was really bad. I am a some what perfectionist when it comes to that stuff. Yes, that is an annoyance to me at times.

Sunday morning came quickly as I had only about three hours of sleep and off to my parents for a shower and to get ready for church. I was painting the only bathroom with a shower in it, and did not want the moisture in the room until I was done. I made it through church and even stayed awake as well, which was a good thing because I was running the computer that puts the worship words and verses up on the screen for all to see.

After church I stopped at the store again and picked up some more supplies for the day. I got right back into finishing the room. My parents came down after church as well. I finally found the colors I wanted to use on Sunday. My mom and I picked some out on Friday night, but did not find any matching rugs and towels that we liked. Apparently that is an issue with some people, not really with me, but I rolled with it for awhile. Saturday I primed with no color picked out yet. I went to a different store and found what I was looking for. I grabbed two different wash cloths to show my mom when she got there. The one color was what we picked out on Friday and she liked the contrasting color as well. Cool! They went and got the color paint that I needed while I finished up priming, and painting the ceiling.

With only a few hours left, before the sprouts where to be back, I started in putting the color on the walls, actually the closet first. What a pain that was. I had to take a little break when the sprouts arrived, but got right back to work, and they were content with just sitting on the couch and watching a movie. They did discover some arts a crafts stuff, so while watching the movie, they created their own master pieces. Only once did the oldest ask if she could help me paint the bathroom. She was ok with, I don't think so today.

At 1am I was done, and had everything picked up and cleaned up, ready for re-assembly Monday. My dad came down while I was at work on Monday with my younger sister that works with him as well, and they put my bathroom back together. With the exception of a few things, because I might change the look of those as well.

I am changing the closet doors for one thing. My dad is going to make them for me, and I am going to put a stainglass panel in the top part of the door. I am pretty excited about that. I think I am going to paint the trim in the room as well, just to change it up a bit. That will not be as big of a project as the whole room was. The only reason I am thinking of that is because the people before me did not care if they got paint on the wood work or not.

A funny note though, I patched up a couple of spots on the walls, one was from the people before me who had decorations on the wall with tape and pulled some of the wall out when they packed up. The other was when my youngest tip something over and it put a whole in the wall. My dad while working on the toilet, saw one of the spots and put his finger through it, because he wondered what it was. He said "Did you put something on the wall?" My response was "Why did you just put your finger through it?" So, needless to say I had to patch that up again.