Christmas is just not my thing

I don't enjoy Xmas. I really don't. It saddens me because it was such an important time of year for me years ago. During my single days, pre-children, when there were only 3 people in the world I had to think about for gifts. And nothing else to do but decorate a tiny apartment and only one place to go on Xmas day.

But honestly, I am not at all interested in going back to those times because even though the holidays were lovely and stress-free...I really wasn't happy in general with my life. I suppose that's why Xmas was such a special time for me back then. Because I had an external reason to be happy for one month a year that just filled me up completely during that month. The rest of the year it was much more of a struggle to feel that kind of happiness.

So Xmas is a small price to pay for the joy I feel the rest of the year for the blessings of my much fuller life now. I just have to remind myself of this. Regularly.

So right now, while I'm thinking about this, I'm writing this down so that I can reread it regularly this month and remind myself that Xmas doesn't have to be dreaded. My children adore it...what child doesn't? And I need to work at making it special for THEM. I don't have to go nuts and fill every day with special things...but just spending special focused time would be enough for them. Even though I homeschool...I find it hard to focus on one-on-one special time with my kiddos. Because there's SO much to worry about at any given moment of every single day. So many things I need to be teaching them or exposing them to. So much work to be done on the house, so many struggles to get them to help out. Its friggin exhausting!!

But lately I've been really thinking that this is ridiculous. I spend every day...most days every minute of every day, WITH my kids...I need to figure out a better way to BE with them!! It's ok for them to have their own things to do...and they should...but I need to find better ways to bring us together for special 1-on-1 and 1-to-2 (both kids) time. I know they'd appreciate it. So THAT is what I need to be working on with them. NOT working on whatever to-do list I have for the day. I need to do that as well, but I need to also devote time to put it aside and just do something special to show them how much they mean to me, and build those special childhood memories that I so very much want for them.

And this time of the year is the perfect time to try something like this out! So, now I'm going to go get my day started and see what I can do to schedule time into our days to doing special things to just BE with each other...not just getting stuff "done".

So today I'm going to start with getting all the Xmas stuff out and start working on Xmas-i-fying the house. I know they will like that, and I need to work on not being such a grinch. I'll put on the Xmas music and put up the colorful lights, and that will help. And I'll not worry about allllll the stuff I have to do, because the most important thing I need to be doing is just spending special time with my children. Turn off the tv, turn off the computer, and just BE. And maybe we'll even get some cookie dough and make something sweet. :)

just breathe....

i have to remind myself to breathe. i'm getting that worked up feeling where i'm feeling out of control with stress.

after 3 years of having our house in chaos because of the big rm being out of commission and crap piled up in various areas of our house and shed and inaccessible for the most part...we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel....but it sure has ramped up the stress here in this last month of construction and remodeling of that room.

we have a piano and a desk on end piled in our living room, which is our main living space, and for the past month have been having to squeeze past things in other rooms as well, as all the stuff that we had thrown into the unused big rm is piled up elsewhere in the house during construction.

its truly amazing how much your home environment really does affect your mood. the stress level in the house has been darn near unbearable the past month...and i'm at the end of my rope in patience for my kids and them with me. we have all been barking at each other way more than usual, adam & i included, and the kids are fighting so much i'm ready to just walk out (i won't, of course, but that's the feeling i get sometimes when i've had to break up yet another fight between them.)

all this will be worth it, though, as our big rm is darn near done. by this weekend we are hoping to be able to start moving stuff in. assuming we can get carpet installed in the next 2 days.

on top of all that's happening here, maeven has come down with a bug and is miserable and making everyone miserable around her. well it might be she is playing it up, because she's distracted right now and acting normal...but the whining and crying that she does when she feels anything slightly off is enough to drive me INSANE.

right now i'm listening to them fight behind me and i want to just SCREAM!

just feeling out of control today, as i have to find time to go pick up adam's paycheck since he forgot to leave it here with me to deposit and we had our mortgage payment bounce last month and i can't let it happen again...and workers are going to be calling me to meet them at home depot sometime this morning to buy trim...and maeven is whining and crying about her throat and i'm trying to decide if she needs a dr's appt (right now i'm leaning towards no, that she just needs some echinacea and a distraction)...and we have to make a decision on the door to adam's office (paint or stain, and under pressure neither one of us can think straight...and he was rushing off to a meeting so couldn't talk or think)...and i had to reschedule 2 things just now because i doubt we'll be available for them...both were fun things that we could have used but they'll have to wait til next week or month....and i have been sorely neglecting TLV as this project has consumed our lives...and maeven is bugging me about playing on the computer so i need to get off because i need to get showered and dressed and moving on this day.

i just need to breathe. i sure could use a vacation. next week i can have a vacation in our own big rm. gotta keep thinking of that. for now i need to just get to a place where i can relax and breathe and get what needs to be done, done.

it'll all work out...i just needed to vent. :)

very frustrated

i need to get these fliers out about "move it, dig it, do it", and usually i ask the moms on the local moms groups to help me, and they usually come through like gang busters. but i've not had a single mom pick any up yet, or even say they would. :( and normally i would say, ok, no worries, I'LL hit the town hard and go everywhere. but right now things are so tight financially that its seriously getting scary to figure out how we are going to pay our bills. for the last couple months we are coming up short on the necessities and having to scrape harder then i think we've ever had to scrape before. so that means gas is a very valuable commodity and i simply cannot use up our precious fuel going everywhere all over town.

i'm not sure what to do at this point.

TDC paid over a hundred bucks for these fliers because they had run out of toner for their copy machine and i thought i had a team of moms that would blanket the town, as they usually did, and that i needed to get them copied pronto so janet, the director of TDC, said to go ahead and have them printed. that's money TDC really doesn't have. they are not making ends meet even worse than our family right now. which is why this event is so very important for them, so advertising like this HAS to happen.

anyway, so now i have this stack of fliers sitting outside my house and one inside my car, that i'm not sure how i'm going to get it out and i'm really frustrated because the event is a week away.

for babyfest every year i've had a whole slew of mamas that email and say they'll take even just a handful and they really came through every time. i thought it would be like that again, but its just not happening right now and its stressing me out!

not to mention our money situation is adding to all my stress. i swear, we are actually doing WORSE now than when adam had his 10% pay cut! its insane! the only thing i can figure is that PG&E just went up $88/month and he's not getting all the side jobs that helped us through the pay cut times. there's money out there that people owe him, a fairly good amount too, and he's just not getting paid what he's due because they don't have the money to pay him.

so we are having to stay home more because we cannot afford much gas. we are stretching our food at home and we have debts that we just cannot pay right now...medical bills up the ying yang because i don't have health insurance and the insurance adam has is pretty crappy. oh and the kids have healthy families but i only use it for emergencies so we have bills to their ped. then there's the credit card that we were so proud of being paid off, but now has about $1000 on it because adam had to buy some gear for work on it (for his freelancing) and we thought would be able to be paid off pronto, but then everything went to hell and we ended up having to use every penny he brought in for necessities and still are.

i know that people all over are struggling. i know that. but it doesn't make it any easier from where i stand right now, very stressed, over how i'm going to pay for my daughter's birthday party coming up which she has her heart set on and realizing that we again will have to cancel our homeschool day at marine world because we cannot afford it. not the end of the world, but still depressing. i don't even want to think about xmas.

oh and then there's the fact that i can barely see out of my glasses, they are so scratched up, our big room is still a nasty mess because we cannot even afford to pay the bills much less get that fixed up again, adam's car has been in dire need of new brakes for a LONG time (scary), the van needs some work, just about every electronic device in our house doesn't work (no joke--stereo, boombox, dvd/vcr sucks big time, cordless phones died, etc), tyren doesn't have a bed because maeven broke the box spring and while i managed to find one on freecycle the crazy lady for some reason decided i was someone that always asks for everything and never shows up and is suspicious that i may be selling things as a business when i've never actually emailed this woman before and she wanted to report me which is ludicrous and she gave the thing to someone else apparently (*sigh*), i have barely enough coming in to my websites to pay for the websites themselves right now, i don't even know how i'm going to pay the $10 for the art club that my kids really love that is next week, my computer has been blue screening again, and everywhere i go in my house i see things that need repairing or replacing and i cannot even begin to think about when we will have the money to do that.

yeah, i'm whining, and yeah others have it worse. at least we have a home and adam has a job. i know that. but if you cannot vent on your own blog, i don't know where you can! GRRRRRR.

ok now that i got that off my chest, i need to go buckle down and work on "move it, dig it, do it" so that i can get more help on it. and try desperately to find people to help me with these damn fliers. they HAVE to go out, TODAY!! hmmmm, i think we'll be doing some walking around our neighborhood today. save on gas and get some exercise. :)

the drama of our lives

we have only 1 credit card...which i'm quite proud of (we paid off the others when we remortgaged our home and took cash out to pay off a bunch of stuff). and we rarely use it. recently we've had to use it, unfortunately, but we are paying it off as soon as adam gets some more money in from jobs that owe him money. should be pretty easy to pay it off, its still under $1000.

we've had to use the card recently for a few needed items (including groceries) and because of the whole dryer drama: thought we needed to replace our old dryer because it wouldn't heat anymore...so i recycled it (got a whole $4 for the metal, woohoo!) and we paid for a new dryer at best buy (way too much, we just weren't thinking and just wanted to get something fast. i had been without a dryer since the day before tyren's bday party, so july 9, and laundry was seriously piling up.) this was on monday, july 13. they said it couldn't be delivered til thurs july16. i wasn't happy about that, but resigned myself to a few more days of laundry piling up (and i am short on clothes, too, ugh). and doing the necessary items and hanging to dry as needed (which i hate doing...extra work and crunchy clothes=grouchy mama). got a call from best buy on thursday saying that the dryer STILL hadn't come in yet...should be delivered friday or saturday. never heard back...spent quite some time on friday trying to get someone at best buy to answer their stinkin phone to let me know what was up with our dryer (when they FINALLY answered their phone, they said i needed to talk to the clovis store and transferred me and then THEY wouldn't answer their phone!) FINALLY got ahold of someone that could tell me about my dryer and they tell me that it now won't be delivered til TUESDAY! (8 days after we bought it!) unbelievable. i was PISSED!

so i ran around town and did some research on machines...found used ones at salvation army but they were all gas (we needed electric)...didn't want to go the craigs list route because you really have no idea who you're buying from and no recourse if the machine doesn't work once you get home.

found some other used ones, but they were all around 10years old. didn't make sense to spend half as much but get something 10 times as old, so i went back to looking into buying new. went to a bunch of stores and found out that lowe's had a really cheap machine that was actually quite good! roper, which is made by whirlpool. all over the internet it was praised as being top of the list for least repairs. it just is a no-frills whirlpool basically. and it was the cheapest i found! so i went to best buy and got a refund on that dryer, and went to lowe's and purchased the roper and brought it home (which was a bit of a deal because i had to ask my dad to help get it with his truck). then turned it on and....it doesn't heat either! so we had to call an electrician to look at the outlet...turned out the breaker had indeed been tripped (it was something 2 different people had already looked at and apparently didn't flip it back right). paid $85 just for him to flip the switch properly. but luckily we also had some other work for him to do while he was here...the outlet that the front sprinklers are plugged into in the big room stopped working and i was having to do the sprinklers manually again (annoying), so he fixed that while he was here...so it was worth the money and the time to get both of these issues fixed.

then...get this...he leaves and adam discovers the dryer stopped heating again! looked outside and sure enough, the switch had tripped again. flipped it back on and voila! heat again! but now we know we DO have an issue in that outlet. the electrician said it was fine. so now adam is miffed that we have to have them come back again...and they better give us a deal on fixing that outlet! but at least now, i can do laundry. adam showed me where and how to flip that switch if it trips again. yay!

and i should mention that this whole dryer fiasco started july 9 and its now the 24 and its not yet over and during that time tyren got sick twice and maeven got sick twice! (she's sick again today).

not to mention the above 100 degree temperatures that have been sizzling us all out here (don't think we've had a day under 100 this whole month!)...and bad air days when we are advised to keep our kids indoors.

its been a rough few weeks! actually, tyren's bouts will illness started july 5, so its just been a rough month. he's been sick 4 times this month and maeven twice. and these are kids that really never get sick. so its just been a hard month all around.

when it rains, it pours. i'm looking forward to august.

POSTSCRIPT: just remembered that it seriously could be worse. i'm counting my blessings that dryer drama/heat/kid illness is all i'm contending with right now... a dear friend of mine lost her father this month...my heart goes out to her and her family.

kids are ok, its mom that dislikes change to routine!

not that we have a set routine, really...but i have had things coming up lately that have been pretty important and they have made me feel like i'm running around like a madwoman at times to accomplish them. honestly, its only here and there, but its really make me detest changes to my usual week.

like next week i have tyren's dentist appt (rescheduled because he threw an absolute fit and refused to even get out of his carseat when we went the week before babyfest...hoping that that week was just stressful for us all and so he was picking up on that and this next week he'll be better about it...we'll see), and i have to drop the kids off at my mom's so i can go with my dad to DMV and transfer ownership of the van to us (its always been theirs but they paid it off recently and want to make it official...even though it lives at our house and we primarily use it) and get my driver's license renewed...something i didn't realize that i had let expire.

i think there are other things on my calendar next week too that i'm forgetting...i've had meetings lately to go to and more that are getting put on the calendar...not that i mind...i actually enjoy getting involved in things that are important enough to have official meetings, LOL! but just don't want my weeks filling up with these things. i MUCH prefer to be able to just relax and enjoy my kids and work on the house on a typical day. running from thing to thing is just not my thing.

today is a bit much too...i have my daughter's friend that is getting dropped off any minute, to spend the whole day because her mom is out of town today (which isn't a bad thing...we like having her, she's no problem at all so long as my kids cooperate and don't spend the whole time fighting over time with her)...then my mother-in-law will be here at 10 for her maeven time (which will be maeven/brooke time today) and i have to be ready and get tyren ready to go to music class by 10:15...and then later on this afternoon there's 4pm kid yoga...and then sometime after that brooke gets picked up and maeven goes out to her nana/bompa time.

not really any big things, but for some reason i'm feeling this morning like my day is crammed. probably also because i am trying to figure out how to go help a friend tomorrow to work on her yard...leaving the kids with adam if he's able to do it...i really really want to help, but i'm not sure yet if adam will be able to do this since he has a shoot but doesn't yet know what time that will be, and i don't like not knowing exactly how things are going to go...its bugging me! LOL!

i don't know, i'm just really feeling a bit overwhelmed with life this week...thinking of all the things i keep adding to my calendar and especially about that dentist appt looming on monday. its something that has to happen or else we are going to have to take tyr in to get him put under general anesthesia to get those teeth fixed...and i'm REALLY trying to avoid that because it scares the crap outta me, not to mention how he will be affected by it! just want to get the whole thing over with and fixed so we don't have to worry anymore.

i just hate feeling stressed...i really don't feel it all that often anymore (at least, lately)...so when i do, its such a yucky feeling. bleh. makes me feel like i'm in knots. probably once i get my day going and we get through a few of things things and i get to the point where i'm not thinking about the dentist, things will be better.

on the plus side, i'm moving forward very well with the learning village paperwork. got the bylaws written a couple days ago!! woohoo, go me! and i may have someone (hope hope hope) to take the babyfest off my hands, so that will be one less thing i'll have to deal with (of course, that wouldn't be til the end of this year when i'd be working on it again...but its a project that is always lingering in the back of my consciousness...so i'll be glad to be able to get it OUT of my head completely! and into good hands!)

anyway, i'm not sure why i feel all tense this morning...probably i didn't get enough sleep and that dentist appt is looming...i need to find something else to think about and get my mind on happy things...time to work on the learning village papers...it so makes me happy. :)

hard to focus

this is a stressful week. babyfest is day after tomorrow and i have a ton of things to do still...and stressed over that already...then what did i go and do? i scheduled my son's appt to have his teeth worked on today. what was i thinking?

of course it didn't go well...its a bad week all around. he wouldn't even let me take him out of his carseat...he cried and clung to it and i was not going to force him. i knew no good would come of that. so we've had to reschedule one more time.

i had a talk with him...and trying to explain to a 3yr old is darn near impossible but i am trying to cajole him into letting dr halloran work on his teeth...i finally told him if he doesn't let dr halloran work on his teeth that we will have to go to a dentist we don't know and they'll have to put him to sleep. i don't know if i should have said this to him or not but i'm just desperate to do all i can to get him to let dr halloran do the work. 2 big reasons...one being its a lot cheaper to do it with gas than general anesthesia...and 2 being my biggest reason...i don't know how he'll react to anesthesia and it scares the CRAP outta me! so i'd rather he just do the gas. easier and cheaper and better all around. less scary for us all. i just have to convince tyren of this.

today, after we got home from the dentist (where we didn't even go in, though i did talk him into walking around outside but not to go in)...he said OK that he'd go to dr doug because he doesn't want to go to the sleep place. i am seriously hoping that he doesn't end up having to be put under general, because i don't want him to get freaked out by that idea, but its the truth...if he doesn't cooperate, we'll have to do general. and none of us wants that. so if i can just get him to agree to see dr doug, and cooperate while he's there...all will be well (i hope).

anyway its just a bad week...i'm hoping part of the problem today was that i'm already stressed because of babyfest and didn't have time to properly prepare him. we'll see.

his next appt is in may. about 2 weeks. cross your fingers that he will cooperate then because if he doesn't, we are out of options. :(

simplifying life

i have no idea how to do this. really, i don't. i can't, or i won't or something, i don't know...i just seem to be incapable of it. *sigh* and right now i'm really desiring to figure it out.

i always have tons of projects i'm working on but right now i actually am unhappy with how much i'm involved in. i need to figure out how to drop something but i really don't know what or how!

one thing that's stressing me out is tyren's teeth. once we get that whole thing sorted out, my life will be less stressful. right now i'm still working on brushing him several times a day, and tonight i got him mouth wash. got an idea from a friend to paint it on the bad spots w/a Qtip...since he's too young to swish without swallowing. hope it helps. his teeth don't look good...but the dvd pinatta's view seems to be helping him start to get used to the idea of the dentist's office not being the scariest place on earth. its seriously an awesome movie!

then we are planning to play dentist...only done it like once so far because i keep forgetting! but that's on my mental list of things to do this weekend...get going on playing that so that he can start getting even more comfortable with the dentist idea. hopefully that will enable us to get a second opinion on his teeth finally. what i'm really hoping is that someone will tell me that its not as bad as it looks and that it can be treated in short visits so that he doesn't have to go under general anesthesia, which scares the crap outta me. i won't know til i can get tyren to not freak out at the new dentist's office. i may be dreaming, it may be unavoidable, but i can dream, can't i? i need to read up on some of the info i read about at mothering.com that mentions recalcifying teeth and healing cavities and such.

so for now we're just trying to buy some time to sort things out...i'm just trying to get his teeth to not get worse basically.

anyway, anytime i start thinking about this i get a knot in my stomach, so i'm going to change the subject now.

back to simplifying...i want to be done with the storyland project, but it seems it might take longer and a lot more work than expected. *sigh* i am all for helping them out, i just shouldn't have taken the project on in the first place...wouldn't ya know it, it was MY idea! but i don't want to drop it, i really don't. i really want to make that hansel/gretel exhibit stunning! i really do! this saturday we're getting the sand delivered and spread! woohoo! its a start! next i think i need to find someone to replace the fence. dad looked at it with me last week and said it would be better to just replace the whole thing. i want to get someone that knows what they are doing...so hopefully i can get the fence donated and someone to donate their time to install it. i have someone in mind to ask...we'll see what he says.

then there's babyfest. its that time of year again. i really do like organizing and running babyfest but it really does take up my whole life for the couple of months prior to it. and i'm really dragging my feet in getting into it this year. i need to get my butt in gear. i did finally get the website updated. i think. hopefully i didn't miss anything.

then there's the homeschool resource center. that's actually where i would like my focus to be right now. and the discovery center. i met with the director of TDC today and i'm helping them find fun activities to supplement their program...i'm really looking forward to working on it! but once again...more things for me to do. and i cannot even seem to take care of my house and buy groceries!

i'm so A.D.D. ...i heard somewhere that ADD'rs have a hard time keeping their attention on the mundane day-to-day stuff...but are good at focusing on the new. that's SO me. but then there's another thing about me and that is that i don't like to drop things once i've committed to them. it seriously makes me ill to do that. one of the hardest things for me...hence the predicament i'm in with too many projects. the good news is that i am NOT NOT NOT taking on any new projects! i'm NOT!!! nononononononononoooooooo. ok well just the activities for TDC, but nothing else, i tell ya!!

gawd i wish my son would go to sleep. he's still up watching a maizy movie. ugh. i need to work on him. i'm really not accomplishing anything right now so i might as well work harder and getting him to sleep. *sigh*

stuck between a rock and a hard place

god i hate it when life happens like this. i get stuck in this cycle of worry and stress and feel the world is spinning. i know we'll make it through this, and probably everything will be fine eventually...but in the meantime i'm so friggin scared and stressed and it SUCKS!

my baby boy has cavities. not a surprise...he fights tooth brushings tooth and nail. we've been very lax about it til recent months. we still at least once, often more times, a week have to literally sit on him and pin his limbs to brush those teeth. *sigh* it seriously sucks. we've tried everything we can think of...this boy is really stubborn. we really have tried to make it fun...we've tried SOOOO much! but it comes down to pinning him down so often. sometimes we can distract him and sometimes he's mostly fine...never easy, but he'll open his mouth for short periods sometimes...i think he's getting better. he has to. because now he has cavities.

and the dentist wants to send him to a clinic an hour away and be put under general anesthesia and that SCARES THE CRAP OUTTA ME!!!

we took him to the dentist for the first time last week...and for some reason he tolerated the xrays (maeven had just gone before him and he was still sorta figuring out what was going on, i think)...but after watching maeven finish getting her teeth cleaned and it was his turn, he flipped out and would NOT let them touch him and started hysterical crying. darn near broke my heart.

and i couldn't process what they were telling me at the time...they backed off the cleaning and said he needed to be referred out anyway...because of his age and the amount of cavities (they still haven't told me how many, just that its "at least 3" because they "refer out once they hit 3") and because of his anxiety. they didn't even really try. they just immediately backed off, which i was sorta glad of but the more i think of it, i wonder if there might have been a better way to approach him. to try to gain his trust. well but my son IS stubborn and once he's worked up its hard to calm him...i don't know...

anyway so the dentist never even met him. he was busy with another patient...i got the distinct impression they just wanted to send this crying child "problem" quickly elsewhere. dentist couldn't even come meet him! he's never been particularly friendly though, so doesn't surprise me.

i took my crying son and went home and he told me over and over for the rest of the day that he didn't want to go to the dentist anymore. but the xrays showed he needs work done. *sigh*

i really hoped that we could ride out things until he was old enough to brush himself. i really hoped that we would just luck out. but we didn't. so now what?

well i'm going round and round with all kinds of options...and none feel all that great.

so i asked my friends on the apmommies list for advice and another dentist was recommended to me and i really wanted a second opinion. my husband feels like he just doesn't like the idea of having to drive an hour to a place we know nothing about...but for me i'm hoping that we don't have to do general at all...i don't know i guess i want a miracle or something.

called and made an appt with the 2nd dentist, called the first dentist to see about getting the xrays sent...was told sure, fine, get a second opinion but then don't come back. shock. disbelief. i was like, "uh, excuse me?" so basically sure you can get a second opinion but you cannot come back once the records are sent out. i told them that was screwed. they told me that was their office policy. talked to the supervisor, she went around with why i should just do this and that he won't remember anything (and i'm thinking, that's not what i'm asking), and finally says that the policy is in place to help prevent parents from doctor hopping, which will stress the kids out more. yeah bullshit. this is nuts! so now i don't want to go back anyway!

but here's the catch...they take healthy families...this new dentist doesn't. *sigh* but i took tyr there anyway, to see if he could see anything that might make things better or something, i don't know. found out that the new dentist thinks that policy is weird too...and no, they don't have a similar policy...they think parents should be able to get second opinions.

took tyr to the new dentist and tyr freaked out again and wouldn't even let the doctor look at him, much less look in his mouth. no way no how. freakazoid city. NOTHING would distract him.

so now what? well the new dentist is saying i could look into local options that take healthy families...i don't really like this option because the hospital that does it is a really icky one. its where you go if you have no insurance and they treat you like cattle there...i know because i had to go there a few times years ago when i didn't have insurance and i hated every minute of it. the place gives me the heebie jeebies. don't want to take my child there.

the other thing that gnaws in the back of my mind is why this first dentist referred us out of town...he said he doesn't like to refer to anyone local because he's not been happy with their work. great.

well this new dentist does work under general at children's hospital and i do feel more comfortable with this option. but money is a huge issue. he says it will be at least a thousand or 2...or more, who knows? they won't know til they get in there and look. which right now isn't going to happen without drugs.

well, needless to say i'm pretty freaked and have been quite unable to focus on much of anything else. i'm going to be a basketcase until this is all over.

looking into getting tyr books and videos on going to the dentist and toys to play dentist...going to work on brushing him after every meal (was only doing it at night before) to get him more used to having his mouth handled...and going to play lots of pretend dentist. start getting him less fearful. and then hopefully we can attempt another visit to this new dentist and get that second opinion that we've not gotten yet.

i keep hoping there's something that can be done to stave off worse damage while we buy some time for him to mature a little more and hopefully go into a new, less fearful phase.

until then, i'm going to be a ball of nerves...potty training is on hold for now. i can only handle one thing at a time.

xmas part 2

here's the rest of our 2008 xmas story...copied/pasted from an IM conversation i had today with my friend beckie...i'm sunflowermom30...i didn't feel like typing it all again, LOL!!....
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[22:15] sunflowermom30: hey, well, ummmm...our ceiling fell down in the big room yesterday, LOL!
[22:15] beckie_s: OH NO!!
[22:15] beckie_s: from the rain??
[22:15] sunflowermom30: i'll match your stress and raise you, LOL!!!
[22:15] sunflowermom30: no, we have no idea why
[22:16] beckie_s: scary!
[22:16] sunflowermom30: it happened right at the most stressful time...we were freaking out about getting ready to go to inlaws...i was desperately trying to finish up the homemade gifts and tyren was freaking out about not wanting to go anywhere
[22:16] beckie_s: at least no one was in there, I am guessing
[22:16] sunflowermom30: i was preparing for getting into a huge fight with him
[22:16] sunflowermom30: i've had to literally wrestle him into clothes and into his carseat lately
[22:16] sunflowermom30: seriously fight him
[22:17] sunflowermom30: and adam was pissed at me for arranging to go to church with my parents
[22:17] sunflowermom30: cuz he said i was shortchanging his time with HIS family...
[22:17] sunflowermom30: ay yi yi!!!!!!!
[22:17] sunflowermom30: then in the middle of all the yelling and screaming and crying and stressing...
[22:17] beckie_s: :(
[22:17] sunflowermom30: boom boom BOOOOM
[22:17] sunflowermom30: what the hell was that???
[22:17] sunflowermom30: thought the cat knocked something over
[22:17] sunflowermom30: looked in the big room but didn't see anything (looked in the wrong area)
[22:18] sunflowermom30: then 5min later
[22:18] sunflowermom30: BOOOOOOOOOOM
[22:18] sunflowermom30: CRASH
[22:18] beckie_s: :-O
[22:18] sunflowermom30: THAT time i knew it was in there and i looked when the light fixture was still swinging from the ceiling
[22:18] sunflowermom30: and saw all the insulation and drywall in adam's new office in a pile on the floor
[22:18] sunflowermom30: well like half his ceiling in there
[22:18] sunflowermom30: yeah very dramatic
[22:19] sunflowermom30: and OH MY GOD where are the cats????
[22:19] sunflowermom30: did the cats do this? did those fat things jump up there and collapse it?
[22:19] sunflowermom30: no, we found the cats , those fat things, sleeping soundly elsewhere
[22:19] sunflowermom30: and no water, or moisture in the stuff
[22:19] sunflowermom30: so NO idea why it collapsed
[22:19] beckie_s: wow
[22:20] sunflowermom30: but yeah, thank god it happened when the room wasn't finished...and adam's equipment wasn't underneath!!!!
[22:20] beckie_s: right!
[22:20] beckie_s: that would have been really bad
[22:20] sunflowermom30: yup
[22:20] sunflowermom30: but you know what???
[22:20] beckie_s: what?
[22:20] sunflowermom30: it actually made the whole day better!
[22:20] beckie_s: Nice!
[22:21] sunflowermom30: because i immediately saw that as the straw that broke the camel's back and called my parents and canceled church
[22:21] sunflowermom30: i knew that there was no way we were going to have much of any visit with his family cuz we were running late already and to have to jam out of there to go to church...adam would have been stewing on that for years probably...me gypping him of his xmas with his family
[22:21] beckie_s: made things less stressful?
[22:22] sunflowermom30: yeah my parents weren't happy but i finally got that i needed to cancel church and was given a good reason to bail because it was just the last straw of a string of stress
[22:22] beckie_s: that's good
[22:22] sunflowermom30: and i told my dad i needed to cancel because we just couldn't do one more thing that night and adam and i had already been fighting about it for days
[22:23] sunflowermom30: so it was so cool....he immediately perked up
[22:23] sunflowermom30: mood lifted
[22:23] sunflowermom30: he was all sweet and happy again
[22:23] beckie_s: yay!!
[22:23] sunflowermom30: and the room...well, we'll figure it out tomorrow
[22:23] beckie_s: it will still be there
[22:23] beckie_s: and as long as you aren't leaking or anything, you're good ;)
[22:23] sunflowermom30: yeah i guess it takes awhile for me to "get" what i need to do for my husband sometimes
[22:23] sunflowermom30: yeah so far it doesn't appear to be any leaking
[22:23] sunflowermom30: not only that but tyren also perked up
[22:24] sunflowermom30: and by the time we were finally able to get going...he was happy to go!
[22:24] sunflowermom30: and had a blast all night!
[22:24] beckie_s: YAY!!
[22:24] sunflowermom30: yup, it was a good xmas

made it through another xmas!

and had a good time! i just hate all the stress surrounding this holiday. all the money stress leading up to it and all the stress over getting gifts and for me, this year, all the stress of finishing planned homemade gifts!

this always happens...i always think things are going to take less time then they actually take. *sigh*

from the time i got up yesterday morning...i worked on the homemade gifts...amid children fighting and me freaking on them to PLEASE stop fighting so Mommy can get all these projects done by the time Daddy gets home from work (which was supposed to be sometime after noon)...maeven spread her projects out over more time (she has been busy making up her own things for people for literally WEEKS! wrapping them all and carefully putting them all on her dresser...she was SO grown up about the whole thing!! and SOOOO proud!!! and i was proud of HER!) but the photo gifts i had to do most of the work for and i procrastinated...it was really that i was having a really hard figuring out exactly how to do it. i procrastinated getting the photos to walmart...which would have been cheaper then printing them myself, which i ended up doing (printing them myself). but really, it ended up that i really couldn't have picked the photos and the sizes ahead of time. it was all trial and error. i figured it out, finally...by printing one sheet at a time (4X6 size) and seeing what worked where. i edited the hell outta my family's pics and got some damn cute gifts to give, FINALLY, though.

i made photo bookmarks using this print:

which i printed on a 4X6 sheet of photo paper and cut in half. one half for one side, one half for the other...cut out strips of construction paper a bit longer than the photo strip (about the same width)...so maeven could personalize each bookmark...and laminated the whole thing! mighty nice looking bookmarks, if i do say so myself!!

i should note that this was my final version of the bookmark...initially i printed up sheets with tiny pics of my kids like this, (although i used a lot of the same pic over and over):

thought you'd prefer to see one that had all different pics, though, :) actually this print is the one i printed up for the cover of each of the grandma's photo calendars. purchased "my grandchildren" photo calendars that had space on each month, and the cover, for a 4X6 photo. maeven and i picked out our favorite pics of tyren and maeven together and i printed them all up and maeven taped them into the calendars. i made the cover by cropping around each of my kids' heads in each picture that is in the calendar and putting them all together randomly in one image. really fun!! i think it looks really cute, don't you? god i have a LOT of great pics of my kids!!

woops, got off topic...so initially i printed up pages of little pics of my kids cut them all out by hand, also some larger pics, mixed them all together, glued them with a glue stick onto the strip of paper i had cut out for the base of the bookmark...can you say TIME CONSUMING??

then i realized i could save myself a HELLUVA a lot of work if i just photoshop'd the damn pics together to fit on one 4X6 piece of photo paper!! wow, the rest of the bookmarks were WAY EASIER to put together, LOL!

here's the final product, being held by my kid brother, aka "uncle tim":

then i made photo pencil cups out of food cans:

which ended up being a lot of work because i didn't learn my lesson from the bookmarks. odd, but i didn't figure out til i was partway into the 3rd and final photo pencil cup that i could have again photoshop'd the pics in a way to just glue the whole damn 4X6 (and part of another, because a 4X6 doesn't fill the whole can...hey, i think i'll buy 8X10 photo paper next time and measure the right size to fit the can completely and make a photoshop template that will perfectly wrap around the can!! VOILA!!)...anyway that's not the way *I* did it though....NOOOOOO....i cut each pic out individually and glued them all by hand onto the cup.

did you know that photo paper immediately curls up once you put white glue on it? yup, and my 8yr old very quickly got so frustrated with the project (which i had assumed she'd do herself) and i quickly figured out that it was not within her patience level or manual dexterity to figure out how to get the photos glued onto the can with rubber bands to hold them down while the glue dried (without damaging the pics)...use a blow dryer to speed up the process and constantly press (VERY CAREFULLY so as not to smear the photo ink, which incidentally, maeven found out the hard way smears with too much glue on it) on the photo and smear (CAREFULLY) the glue around the edges to train the pics to lay flat against the can...anyway........ it ended up being a big job. one which i thoroughly enjoyed doing, i might add...but a big job.

but they turned out GREAT! lookee!!:

in fact i think i'll make some more! gotta go get bigger photo paper. they looked really cool!! i used these pics for my father-in-law's, because he has more family than my parents:

top half of the pic is my husband and me and our 2 kids, and the bottom half is adam's sister (father-in-law's younger child) and her husband, her 3 kids from previous marriage and the extra little cutie in the far right pic is the daughter of sis-in-law's husband (previous relationship). so, aunt/uncle and cousins/cousin-in-law to my kids.

oh, and i made magnets too. forgot about those...i made them from this template:

i used photoshop to make these too....didn't have the patience to get the circles just right...shoulda tweaked them more but they were good enough, and i just cut off the parts of the circles that stuck out a little...next time i'll tweak it better.

i printed them on a 4X6 photo page and cut the circles out and glued them on a frozen juice lid, and glued a strong magnet to the back. i don't know if the glue will hold though, because i couldn't find our glue gun (which would have saved me a LOT of time and energy if i could have glue gunned it on!!!) so i had to use white glue. i'm not sure its strong enough, so next time i'm going to find the glue gun first. anyway i made those for family members too.

now, each one of these gifts probably doesn't seem like much...although everyone seemed to like them...but i made a LOT of these things!! (to be precise, 3 photo cans, 6 magnets, and i think 8 bookmarks...within the span of like 36 hours) so i spent ALLLLLL day on xmas eve day working on those things (specifically the ones for adam's family) til we ran out the door about 5pm, hours late, i might add, to sis-in-law's to celebrate the day with hubby's family for a few hours. amidst much stress and turmoil mostly caused by my kids, some caused by a house falling down around us and some friction between adam and i (more on these in another post). and then again today after we opened stockings and gifts...i spent the rest of the afternoon finishing MY family's gifts...until we ran out the door (hours late, again) to go celebrate with MY family for a few hours.

all in all i think it all worked out fine. but DAMMIT, will i EVER learn to get these things done AHEAD OF TIME??? probably not. i also don't know that i'll go homemade every year. LOL! did it this year mainly because we were mostly broke most of the time prior to xmas. (things picked up just a few days ago! but i was already in for the long haul with the already planned homemade stuff.)

anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! i am SOOOOOOOOO glad i'm done with all that but it was really a very merry christmas despite all the stress.

now adam has the next 10 days off (he's maxed out on vacation time and we have a ton of stuff to do around the house so it was a good time for him to take off). and we have a house to clean the hell outta cuz it is WRECKED (in more ways than one) beyond belief right now...i couldn't even think about keeping up with housework, not that i ever do, i just let it all go to get stuff DONE!

tomorrow, the shoveling begins!!

stay away from elgo bay

i had a whole lot of ANGER recently over tyren's xmas gift...long story, but i'll try to shorten it. (key word, "try")

i ordered a space station toy for tyr at elgo bay on monday the 15th. i put in the notes of the order that i needed this in time for xmas. (1st time i told them) didn't create an account because it said that i didn't have to. didn't think about the fact that they would only be able to contact me via my paypal email since that's all that i had given them...my paypal email doesn't work anymore. (well it didn't, i've since recreated it. during the recent move to a new host, i just didn't recreate the email.) so they called me that same day and said that i needed to fix this. but i didn't have my cell on so i missed that call til the next day.

ok fine, my fault. i was a dummy for not giving them a valid email and not having my phone on.

so they cancelled my order and refunded my money because apparently they have to have a valid email to process my order. fine.

so i went in as soon as i could on tuesday the 16th and created an account and emailed them about the new account so they knew that i could be contacted there...and would it still be possible for me to order and get the thing in time for xmas (2nd time i talked to them about needing it for xmas). they responded yes, that they were just in L.A., no problem.

so i re-placed the order that same day. (although the paypal transaction didn't go through til the next day, wed...not sure why that is...my mom even says she remembers me placing the order while she was over picking up maeven for nana time, which is on tuesdays.) and again i put a note in there that i needed it for xmas. (3rd time i told them this)

anyway...so then i get confirmation and notice that it was being sent from a warehouse. didn't say where the warehouse was...and again they told me that they were located in L.A. and it shouldn't be a problem. (remember this was the THIRD time that i told them i needed it for xmas). that's 2 times now that they responded to my email address (which they obviously had at this point because they were communicating with me) that yes, they are in L.A., so no problem getting to me by xmas.

then i get a fed ex message that the estimated time of delivery is DECEMBER 30!! and that is was being shipped from PENNSYLVANIA!!!! (i'm in california)

i paid for USPS priority mail, by the way...and apparently its now being shipped fed ex ground. no one told me this ahead of time.

ok i get that sometimes items are drop shipped from different places...but TWICE they told me it would be coming from L.A. and don't worry about it. TWICE!!! they even acknowledged this in our pissy back and forth emails about this situation...apologized for saying it would come from CA!!! (by the way, for those that don't know, i live only about 4 or 5 hours north of L.A.)

i get an email back that i shouldn't point the finger at them because *I* was the one that took my time responding and reordering....uh NO! i remedied (i thought) the situation the very next day!!

and he even had the nerve to tell me, and i quote: "Even if the gift arrive late for christmas, he will have the gift soon after." (bad grammar was in his original note...i think english is a second language for him...so that's understandable. i'm not suggesting anything negative about english being second language...just that i think that's the case.)

um.

YOU tell my 3yr old that he doesn't have a gift from Mommy and Daddy to open on xmas!!! And please explain to him that he has to watch his sister open her gift but his will be here in just 5 more days, don't worry sweetie. !!!!!

i was so mad i was spitting fire!!!

i told him in no uncertain terms that he had his info incorrect, and that i was NEVER told that it would be shipped from elsewhere and that i paid for priority shipping and was never told that wasn't possible! (after we started emailing, he tells me that the vendor doesn't ship USPS and has to do fed ex. ok fine, but tell me that ahead of time! he claims that it was stated when i made the purchase on the site. nope. it wasn't. and it STILL says, on HIS site, in my account transaction record, that its shipping USPS priority mail.)

he hemmed and haw'd:

"We are sorry for telling you that the item will be shipped from California. Item ship, origin location is subject to change, item availability and type of item ordered."

um, nice to tell me this NOW! after the item is now in fed ex's hands!!! and after i told you not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES that i needed this for xmas!!!

after i told him that i would refuse the product and i expect a full refund after its back in his hands, he said:

"We can issue you a partial refund of $10 after you receive your order. You might even be able to pickup your order from FedEx facility in California if it gets there before Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed.

If you refuse the shipment and it get returned, you will receive a refund minus 30% restocking fee, per our Return Policy."

so basically he's going to force me to keep it. i just checked his info on the site and its 20%, not 30% restocking fee, since the item would be unopened. 30% is for opened returns.

ugh. like i'm not stressed enough these days with all our money problems...and we were (at the time this was going down) essentially OUT of xmas money and not even close to done shopping. going handmade for most everyone but still need to purchase a few supplies for printing the photos for them. (making bookmarks, etc to give to family....thought they'd like it and its a lot more affordable then a bunch of random items.)

so now we'll be dipping into our "house money", which is the money that we borrowed from adam's mother to finish the big room. the room that has been in limbo for like a year and a half now. and which causes me stress quite regularly cuz we have no access to most of our art supplies and no place to work on projects without first clearing a space...and i could go on and on but i digress. that room has been a headache for so long and now the money that was supposed to help us finally get that room back is going to start getting chipped away for xmas! *sigh*

and most likely will lead to us having to borrow MORE money to finish the damn room.

and tyren doesn't have a room until that's done.

and i already spent twice what i wanted to spend on tyren's gift. (i alotted just $20 per child for a gift from Mommy and Daddy...but that gift, with shipping was nearly $40, but its what he's been asking for...a space station. and they were sold out all over the net and i really didn't find it cheaper anywhere, not that their price was more than a couple dollars cheaper...and had i known they would be such insensitive ASSES, i would have stayed far away!)

anyway, here it is monday, a week after this whole thing started...and guess where, according to fed ex's website...tyren's space station is now? STILL IN PENNSYLVANIA!!! i'm seriously hoping that they are slow to update their site or something cuz if its still sitting there and they got it in their hands (according to their records) on the 19th...that's beyond ridiculous!

my last email to elgo bay has not been responded to. i went off on him about how it is NOT out of his hands (he last told me it was out of his hands)...that it absolutely is IN his hands and he is fully capable of still giving GOOD customer service and fix this. he could refund me the FULL amount RIGHT NOW so i could go buy something for my kid to open from Mommy and Daddy on xmas...he could order me a new one and ship it one day service at his expense to make sure we have one in our hands on time. he could at the very least admit they made a very big error and at least TRY to do something to fix it instead of trying to make this all MY fault!

this is the most deplorable customer service i've ever encountered. so much for the good will of this season. i told him repeatedly that we are tapped and i spent the last of my xmas money on this gift for my 3yr old and now its not going to even get here in time??? luckily, that's now changed...but that just happened after i emailed him, and he showed no real sorrow for the situation. even said that he "loves kids" and has 10 of his own and understands their "expectations at this time of the year" or something like that. sorry, but my 3yr old doesn't yet HAVE expectations about xmas. this isn't about his expectations...this is about what will happen on christmas day when he might have no gift to open from mommy and daddy but his sister does!

i am still so completely enraged by this whole situation and i'm not sure how else to deal with it except to warn others to STAY AWAY FROM ELGO BAY!!! BAD BAD BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE AND NO HEART!!!

learning patience

i've been working on practicing patience lately. its been just a tiny step so far, but i'm pretty proud of myself and felt i wanted to write about it.

i'm not a patient person...never really have been...although i used to be a LOT more patient in regards to other people's children. teaching, i had an immense amount of patience in comparison to nowadays. i am trying to learn to give the same thing to my own children.

anyway, its only been in little tiny ways so far, and i cannot ensure i can keep it up all the time...but i've been so very happy every time i realize that i've exercised patience. '

i'm so tired of being stressed out and short with my kids. this time of the year is prone to this, but i am like it pretty much constantly these days, for months...i don't know how long, but its become the norm for me and i'm hating it enough to finally slow down and think about it.

so today when my 3yr old was lashing out at his sister and hitting her (for what, i don't know, its the standard reaction from him when they fight...and they fight constantly)...instead of yelling and getting angry with him...i gently pulled him towards me, holding his arms in my hands gently and told him calmly, eye-to-eye, "hands are not for hitting, your sister does not want to be hit." i did not put him on time out (which i don't believe in anyway, although i do use a modified version of it when i'm at whit's end and am afraid that i'm going to hurt them or say something hurtful, which i'm more likely to do than physical hurt and i know hurts worse...i take them away from me to another room and tell them they can come back when they are able to talk respectfully, or something like that) i did not yell (something i've been really prone to lately)...but i was calm and for that moment, he really responded to it! and i immediately changed the subject and thanked him for picking up all his pretzels that he had just done prior to the argument...

the moment was really a positive one for me and i hope i can keep it up.

i have been thinking of what my children's lives are full of ...and lately its not super positive...so i am working to change that. when my children grow up and remember their childhood...i want them to remember joyous times with a loving, caring mommy. obviously i cannot be that all the time, but if the joyous times outnumber the nonjoyous, i trust that is what they will remember. if i spend most of my time being angry with them, THAT's what they will remember. i don't want that.

i have just been doing a lot of thinking about childhood lately. i have a bachelor's in child development but seem to have lost sight of that.

i had a recent conversation with a long-time friend on IM lately and i told her how i'm so tired of feeling like a failure as a parent. i'm tired of reading parenting books and philosophies about what is the "right" way to do things...i told her i think our generation of parents relies too much on "experts" and have completely lost touch with the natural parenting instinct that parents of the past might have had. i doubt they worried as much about doing things "right" so much as just living life and surviving.

sure there are people that are so way off-base with parenting that they SHOULD read these parenting books (the good ones)...and there are certainly pearls of wisdom in the books...but even dr sear's attachment parenting books make me feel guilty if i try what he suggests and i cannot keep it up!

i have come to the conclusion that there's just not always a "problem" when we think there is a problem. sometimes a tantrum is just a tantrum because that's what kids do! my son doesn't tantrum because "he can", but because he's 3!! and he's still learning what it is to be a human being in this very overwhelming world. he lacks the cognitive ability to understand the things that *I* understand. heck, i'm not even sure *I* understand much!

it just seems like everything you read or hear about everywhere in books, movies, magazines, tv, and other parents is how to "fix" things. how to solve a "problem." and maybe sometimes it just needs to be not thought over and fixated so much on. maybe sometimes it really is just something that they will get through and move on to another stage where they are better able to handle whatever it is that is causing the "problem."

i'm not suggesting that parenting should be about doing NOTHING, and just letting them be. there certainly are plenty of times when our guidance is needed...and i'm certain that some children's behavior does indeed come about due to the parents lack of parenting. but maybe there's an awful lot of the stuff we are trying to control that really just is going to happen whether we stress over how to "fix it" or not!

and maybe if i let go of trying to be the perfect parent (which no one is capable of being, regardless) and try to constantly control and mold my children...maybe i can instead unintentially control and mold them simply by being a fun and loving person to be around...someone that doesn't accept being talked to in disrespectful ways, but who models the appropriate behavior above all else. i've read over and over and over again that above all else its the way WE act that teaches our children, not so much what we say...so maybe there's some truth to that because i certainly am not being respectful to my children when i yell at them. sure, there are times when its just going to happen...and maybe i can be real about that too...but to spend so much time in the day being irritated by everything my kids do may actually be causing more of the problems that are irritating me!

i want my children to have strong childhood memories of mommy being fun and silly...not angry and stressed.

maybe if i just relax and have fun and enjoy my kids more, they will turn out alright.

*sigh*

ok, things could be worse. i KNOW that people have it worse out there...but i have found that i tend to feel better about bad situations once i vent about them...so here goes...

*sigh*
DEEP BREATH

ok so i mentioned before how adam got a 10% pay cut, right? well, now here's the thing...its kinda confusing, so bear with me here...

he's maxed out on vacation time...he never uses it! so he's got 3weeks paid vacation on the books which now he cannot use because, guess what? business is SLAMMED at his work right now...which is good, right? that they are making money again? well its still going to take awhile before they are back in the positive...they have been keeping the biz alive using credit for awhile, so its good that business is hopping, but that doesn't mean adam will go back to normal pay anytime soon...

and in the meantime...we CAN'T GET FRIGGIN WIC BECAUSE OF THAT VACATION PAY ON THE BOOKS!!! they don't go by what he's making NOW, they go by the past year, which is on the paystub, including that chunk of unused vacation time!

so, without that vacation pay, we'd totally qualify for WIC...we qualified before his pay cut!! but that damned vacation pay, which he cannot get anytime soon, is stopping us from getting free food from WIC!!! food we could definitely use.

and to top things off...we still have a house in chaos because its taking FOREVER to remodel our "big room"... i've blogged about it before...the room had all kinds of stuff...it was our playroom/school room so there was a TON of stuff in there...stuff i have really wanted access to ever since, but haven't for going on a year and a half now! stuff that is piled up in garbage bags because it still is covered in toxic mold spores, so i cannot take them out of bags until its been cleaned with mold killer...but i cannot do that yet until i have A PLACE TO PUT ALL THE STUFF! and the room still looks like this:


and this:


so obviously unusable. so the stuff is still piled up next to my side of the bed in the bedroom and packed into the shed (i have a really hard time getting in there to get anything since its all full of garbage bags of stuff). and of course my kids keep asking for stuff that we cannot access cuz its in a garbage bag somewhere (god knows which one!)

anyway, the person that was helping us fix up the room did a bang up job and got all the major jobs done. despite how it looks...its come a LONG way...the new windows are all in, the walls for adam's office are up (the frames at least)...oh did i mention that while we were remodeling we figured it was time for tyren to have his own bedroom? so we have 3 bedrooms but one of the rooms is adam's office...full of his video equipment which bring us in a little extra cash here and there, so are very important...

tyren doesn't yet have a space of his own...so we figured while we were working on the big room, we'd use part of it for a new office for adam so that tyr could have his own room finally. (not that he'll sleep in it anytime soon, but he does need his own space...especially since he's banned from maeven's room). hence, the new walls.

anyway....so we are VERY grateful for all the work that has been already done. but its not done yet. nothing's livable yet. and now we just found out he won't be able to help us anymore. *sigh* ok, adam panicked big time but i actually remained pretty calm...i mean all the big stuff has already been done...if he just helps to install the door to adam's office (which he mentioned he might be able to still do for us) and maybe finish the stucco on the outside of the house, we might be able to handle the rest ourselves. hopefully. i think we can. it will all be a learning experience for us since we've never put up drywall and such. but it has been getting harder and harder for our helper to find time to help us anyway...weeks going by with no word, and we don't really like to impose on his life (even though he does owe us money, we never wanted to make the situation unpleasant). so maybe now we can get the job done faster, who knows? i'm just trying to think positively under tremendous amounts of bad situation all around us.

god this post is getting long...but it feels good writing it all out...

ok, so one of the reasons we were having this person do our room for us is that they owe us a chunk of money. so he was working it off...also he's a kind person to offer to help us! so by his no longer working for us, they still owe us a chunk...some was paid off with the work he did, but not all...and since WE had to borrow money to purchase supplies to finish the room (all our money is now gone...various things kept popping up...and the original money we loaned out to a couple family members over a year ago was the money that we had for fixing up the big room in the first place!!) and that borrowed money was only to cover the supplies, not the labor because we thought we had the labor covered...we were initially pretty upset (ok so it still is not a happy situation, but all will be fine)...anyway...we still don't know if we'll have enough to complete the job...but i have high hopes that all will be well eventually...if i can just convince my stress-prone, negative thinking husband!

here's the sort of amusing part...we are a one income family...who makes less than one income of many of the 2-income families out there. seriously, i mean we would qualify for WIC and medi-cal, if it weren't for that unaccessable vacation money! so income-wise, we are poor by government standards (but don't think that we really feel poor, because i know we still have things much better than many people out there...just going by the numbers). and we are not a super thrifty/frugal family!

i think the only reason we are doing ok is because my parents let us use their van (no payments there, yet)...our other car is paid off....we have no credit card debt (we never had a huge amount, because we've always tried not to use them much, but we did have some that was paid off when we re-mortgaged our house and took a chunk of cash out to buy adam's business equipment and pay off all our debt except the mortgage)...we don't have lots of extras...no cable tv (but we do have cell phones and dsl for our computers...but the bare minimum available)...we don't spend a lot on things like clothes or things for our house...we rarely spend money on anything other than actual NEEDS actually...all of my kids clothes are hand-me-downs or purchased by family. i can't remember the last time i bought my kids any clothes.

and so we're actually doing pretty ok. we definitely don't live outside our means...we do eat out far too much, but that's like taco bell and such...we try to eat cheap when we do...and its been cut back greatly lately (hoping to cut it out completely soon...but we still HATE to cook and HATE to go grocery shopping, so that makes it hard...)

i mean, we are definitely not "well off"...my son is still wearing his 3T winter coat (way too small) because i cannot afford to buy him a new one right now (actually the next thing i'm going to do is post to my mommy group and see if anyone has one they can spare to give up for him...we are all about hand-me-downs, i tell ya!) the only shoes my kids own are because of nana (she's a bit shoe-happy)...and actually many of them are going to good will because they've outgrown so many. maeven has drawers FULL of clothes because of hand-me-downs (thank god!) and tyren is doing ok because of my mom buying things for him when he needs them...although the coat and long sleeved shirts are next on our list of things he needs...he's doing ok. could be worse.

and adam and i get clothes frequently for birthdays/xmas so we are doing mostly fine in that dept. hell, adam has a closet JAMMED FULL OF SHIRTS because he always gets shirts for gifts! but that's a good thing cuz he does wear them out fast.

and i made about $250 for our xmas this year since we know that besides adam's pay cut we won't be getting his bonus (usually about $1000 and more than covers xmas and all the current bills) so i ran an event and have been trying to do all i can with my websites so that i can make money for xmas...and now we are down to just $130 left of that xmas money cuz of various expenses, the biggest of which was our $75 car registration which i had to use xmas money to pay cuz we didn't have it elsewhere. so xmas is going to be tight this year. we're trying to keep all gifts under $20...and are making as much as we can to save further money.

*sigh* anyway...i think i've vented enough...you get the gist. we have had bad situations come up recently, but it's all going to be ok. it always is. i know this. and i feel better now that i've gotten it all out.

if you made it this far, thanks for "listening". :)

when all else fails, i have to remind myself that i know of people that have things worse, this mom, for example. :(

i suck at housework

i have so much that needs to be done (always), and so of course i'm procrastinating and blogging instead. i really need a maid. :)

my kids are singing "happy birthday to you" right now because i just said that it was my friend beckie's birthday. and now they are arguing over how to sing it cuz tyr decided to basically growl it. hard to explain in writing. it wasn't very musical...and of course maeve had to correct him...and now they are fighting and i'm just ignoring it cuz i'm so tired of them fighting! ARGH!

well guess i cannot ignore it anymore, they are moving on to hitting now. i swear i want to lock them both in a closet and let them just fight it out sometimes. *sigh* this is so exhausting!

as if i wasn't stressed enough

adam just found out today he's getting a 10% pay cut starting with the next check (next payday is this friday). well everyone at his work is. its the boss's way of not having to lay anyone off. which is totally fair, i get that. times are tough, and the biz isn't doing well, so that's what has to happen. i totally understand and can appreciate the position they're in.

doesn't make it any easier on us, though, understanding... *sigh*

10% doesn't seem like much. but i think that will be roughly $130 less per paycheck. $260 less a month. that's HUGE for us! the way it was, we did quite well with his paychecks to pay for all our regular bills. nothing extra, just the regular stuff we could count on monthly. any bills that came in quarterly (like the $200 or so for adam's biz insurance, gifts, if the car breaks down, any repairs on the house, etc...) was money that had to come from somewhere else...which has been his freelancing work. or my websites' advertising income (which has dwindled to just barely enough to cover the costs of running the sites but does still give us a tiny bit of income...like less than $100).

and of course, even with all that...even during GOOD months...we STILL cannot afford health insurance for me. the kids have healthy families and adam has insurance through work. i only get medi-cal when i'm pregnant...so nothing for me now. luckily (knock on wood) i've not had much time spent in dr's offices in recent years. until recently i only went annually to my obgyn to get my annual poke-n-prod (aka pap smear), which i pay directly for. no discounts. recently i finally decided i needed to be seen by a doc because of my migraines (averaging 2-6 a month) and my asthma (that always kicks in hardcore whenever i develop a cold...which is not often, so i've been able to ignore for years...but recently it got really tiresome coughing up a lung and having nothing to ease it.) so i found a new primary care physician and am now on medication for migraines that seems to be helping and i have medicine for when my asthma kicks in. paid out of pocket (well, will be once we get the bill) for the visit.

anyway, i'm off on a tangent, sorry...recently adam's not been getting much freelancing work and the stuff he gets don't always pay him for awhile. times are tough for everyone, i know. so not only are we going to be short the $260ish from his salary, but we are also very short on the extra income. how the hell do we handle that?

well, we do have a little stash that we call "house money" that we try to keep in a separate bank account that is for the remodel of our "big room." that's our garage conversion that was remodeled to a family room by previous owners. because of a flood caused by a hose left on (by me, *sigh*) that triggered toxic mold to grow, the entire room is gutted. we are starting essentially from scratch to rebuild it. and we decided to divide it in the process so that adam will have a new office and tyren can finally have a bedroom (adam's old office).

ANYWAY. so looks like we're going to have to be living off our "house money" for awhile. which means we won't be getting that room back anytime soon. *sigh* i've lived for over a year now without that room and its been really stressful. there really isn't enough room in the rest of the house for what i need for the kids. that room was the playroom so now our living room is always trashed and we have crap crammed in every corner in the house (ok not every corner...in the office and in the bedroom next to the bed, though, and filling up the shed...black garbage bags full of mold spore covered items that i cannot yet clean and bring back into the house because i have NO PLACE to put them!!) this is all my homeschool books (and all sorts of other books) and all kinds of art supplies and toys and other kid related items that we cannot access at all right now. makes homeschooling hard cuz i cannot access all my stuff. and because we don't have a good space for any messy work. the kitchen table is just not a good spot. i'm already rambling so i won't go into why, but its not a good spot.

so back to the original thought....so now things are worse then they already were. but surprisingly i'm not feeling like i'm losing it. i really don't know why but i feel kinda calm about it all.

we had to cancel our annual trip to marine world homeschool days. (six flags in vallejo...not called marine world anymore but it'll always be marine world to me). too expensive. we also had to cancel our visit to our local cornfield maze. we're prioritizing and those things just don't make the cut. maeven's actually taking it pretty darn well, surprisingly. and so am i. maybe i'm just remembering that there are people that have lost their jobs, and my hubby just got a pay cut. and there are people that are losing their homes all over the place....we still have ours.

not sure what's going to happen...but if we have to go longer without the big room, so be it. at least we'll survive. i hate to think of having to go longer, but maybe i'll start dragging that stuff out of garbage bags and start getting rid of more of it and demolding the stuff i do want to keep. maybe i'll get more decluttering done around the house and move stuff around and purge and purge and purge and get rid of more stuff. maybe, in all my spare time (LOL! like NONE lately...i'm so friggin busy) but once i get motivated, its hard to stop me...so i'm going to hold this thought and come back to it tomorrow when i can do something about it.

first thing in the morning, methinks i will be trying to figure out where in the world to put my bookcase so that i can start demolding my books and bringing them in!!!

majorly stressed

i'm back to that kind of stress where i feel the walls closing in around me. after i write this i'm going to gather my kids and run some errands and get outside and breathe some fresh air and try to forget for a little bit.

what's stressing me? money. always money. especially right now. we have this blasted "big room" remodel (after the toxic mold situation) that we are always always always stressing over because we're short on space without that room...over a year now...and we have garbage bags full of the stuff from that room crammed in every spare corner and filling up the shed (all of which still need to be wiped clean with mold killer...but since i have no place to put the stuff now...there it sits in bags). and my son doesn't have a room and its starting to be a problem. and all of this is because of money. because we don't have the money to hire someone to just finish the damn thing...so we are relying on our brother-in-law, who's wonderful, but has a busy life. and so we keep having to wait and wait and wait for the damn room to be worked on! weeks keep going by with nothing done. then a spurt of work, then nothing for weeks. and right now i am ready to just charge the damn thing and get the damned room DONE!! because its a lot to ask rob to keep giving up his weekends to do this for us and its a lot for us to have to keep WAITING and WAITING for it to be DONE!!! its so friggin stressful all around!!! so what to do? hell if i know!

and then...there's more money problems...we have figured it out that adam's paycheck JUST covers all our necessities. all the regular bills. nothing else. i mean nearly to the penny. and then there's always this time of the year that has all kinds of things happening...halloween, maeven's birthday, adam & my birthday, then my brother's birthday, then tim's birthday, then christmas. oh forgot about thanksgiving. not costly, but we usually have to bring some food.

all that costs money. and of course with the country being in the financial state its in, its not a surprise that adam's work is barely managing to keep afloat. and so that will probably mean no christmas bonus this year...and that bonus usually pays for all of christmas and then some. so that means we are counting on not getting one, just in case. which means we have to worry about where the hell to get money to pay for everything. which means that adam needs to make some money and there's not a lot of freelance work available right now. and every bit we get we keep feeling like it needs to go into the big room...but then there's no work being done on it most weeks, so the money keeps getting friggin eaten away!!!

its sooooooooo frustrating!

so we are looking at canceling our trip to marine world. since we just don't have the money. our annual homeschool days at marine world trip is really fun, but it will be so stressful since we cannot afford it! my mom has offered to pay, but i don't know...we'll have to think about it some more.

anyway, i'm stressed. we have not enough money and we have lots of things that need money. ok i need to get away from this stress now.

ugh, "aunt flo" and children's squabbles

i don't get horrid periods...but i'm crampy today and not feeling up to doing much. not to mention, tyren woke up last night for some reason (NO idea why! he's not sick or anything) and stayed awake talking to me and kicking me for what seemed like 2 hours! not sure what time it started but in the middle i looked at the clock and it was like 5am or something. lovely. so i'm tired from that too.

and my kids fighting is exhausting me. i have to say that right at this moment they are both happily playing together outside in the sandbox...with the hose. they love playing in the wet sand and water. we'll see how ....oh lookee, i didn't even get to finish that sentence and then they were coming in the door. well that didn't last long. but they did get some time to play together outside for a little while. that was nice! :) i'll just revel in the babysteps.

now tyren is taking a bath and i finally talked maeven into some quiet reading in her room. today is a lax day. i just don't have the strength for anything more. although i do have a plan to do some prep work on her math studies so i'll be ready to do our next lesson...hopefully when daddy gets home.

i just had a thought as to why things have gotten worse around here lately...i really think alot of it is because tyren has gotten so cantankerous lately. not that i really want to put this all on him...but when he turned 3 he really changed...well right around there...it was really almost like a switch though...he got soooo much harder to handle. to the point now where everything seems like a fight. its absolutely exhausting! and unfortunately maeven, like me, has NO patience for his little quirks. we both just go off the deep end whenever he does anything the least bit irritating or fights us on doing or not doing something. it just goes round and round.

so what i need to do at this point is come up with some techniques to deal with tyren that actually work...and if i can get my son under some sort of control (although i doubt i will be able to SOLVE this...just find some things that work to help us ride it out til he outgrows this difficult stage) then i suspect maeven's grouchies will start to lessen as well. and her meanness towards him. we'll see. its just a theory right now.

also...2 more things i think will help with maeven...finding some foods she actually likes that i can get her to eat on a regular basis...i feel like i need to try to get her to eat something every hour or 2 since she really doesn't eat at meals and so she needs more fruit or some other healthy snacks on a regular basis that will help keep her blood sugar more level and less of the up and down. i do think both my kids are affected by these ups and downs in blood sugar and that if i can get them both to eat more often, that might help as well.

the other thing i think will help with maeven will be when i can get use of the big room again and get more of an activity schedule for my children...actually this will help both of them too...i plan to really get lots of things for them to do regularly...right now i just don't feel prepared to do this sort of thing because i'm constantly struggling to get the house clean as it is...i really don't want to use my kitchen for projects if i can avoid it, because it just feels like a LOT more work since i really don't have storage space right now for anything...OR, here's another thought...maybe i can figure out some sort of temporary storage idea to be able to store supplies and projects in progress and whatnot. some sort of rolling cart or something that we can then use in the big room as well. hmmm, have to think on that some more...that might be a possibility. something on wheels might actually work because then i can move it around the house to wherever its needed. hmmm...i think i'm going to go research that right now actually...i know i saw something like that in discount school supply before.

what a waste of a week

we've all been sick this week which made for a real fun week. not!

i pretty much decided halfway through the week that we might as well scrub this week as far as homeschooling. got nearly nothing done. between us all being sick (myself included, and i got it last so i was really feeling nasty for much of the week...the kids were getting better...although maeven got worse again in the last couple days when a nasty cough developed).

my mom pointed out something to me...if she's sick enough that i would have kept her home from school (if she was going to school), that i shouldn't homeschool either. makes sense. although it is easier to still get a few things done like some reading and such.

anyway things got further complicated when my mom kept having things that made it impossible for her to take tyren as planned. so there was nobody taking tyren off my hands at all this week, for a variety of reasons. well it couldn't be helped. so we'll just chalk it up to a crappy waste of a week.

the only good thing that really came out of the week was getting to go to the "walking with dinosaurs" show last nite. i got free tickets for our family because i did a contest on my fresno family site and gave away tickets to another family. pretty dang cool cuz that was a very expensive show!! i love doing contests! :) good show too!

*sigh* and adam's gone tonite...came home from work and had to do a phone interview for a job for an online company. and then he had to go do some stuff for his mom and brother and he's not going to be back anytime soon as far as i can tell. so i guess i'm putting the kids to bed myself. that's always fun. especially after a crappy day. ah well...life goes on. *sigh* i'm just so tired of the way things have been going...there has to be something GREAT happening around here soon!

so sick of being a single mom--warning: vent

adam has had one thing after another lately that has kept him away from us...free-lance shoots, social things and family obligations. it just has really felt lately like we've not seen much of him.

now i will preface all this with the fact that i KNOW that he's doing good things...he's a really GREAT GUY doing GOOD THINGS, and he's not going out and just leaving us at home for a whim. he's helping his extended family with a lot of things and he's helping us, his immediate family, by making us much needed extra money...and he's got to have time to be able to go out with friends/family to enjoy a social life. i KNOW THIS, and i agree with this. it just piles up on me sometimes for extended periods and i gotta whine. i hate when it seems to happen for weeks and weeks on end (often there's just no way to do it differently, but i still hate it after it keeps happening). which is how lately has been, for the most part. at least it feels that way right now.

now i can hear all the single moms saying "oh wah, boo hoo, welcome to my life." well i KNOW that there are plenty of people out there doing this all the time, without any help. but the difference here is that i'm NOT SUPPOSED TO BE a single mom! i've GOT A HUSBAND! and he LIVES WITH US! and he doesn't normally have a job that takes him away for days at a time!! this is why i hate this. if i had a lifestyle where there was no choice and it was regular, then sure, i'd adapt. but i don't. i have a great husband who i'm used to having home with us after work (for the most part), my children have a FANTASTIC father, and he is supposed to be here, at least a lot of the time. we just go through spurts of time where things happen one after the other where it gets extremely tiresome for me to have to be the only one caring for the children for days on end. because i'm not supposed to be having to do it this way! UGH!

of course, i'm coping and i know there's a light at the end of the tunnel and things will go back to normal again.

but an example of the last 2 days (just a taste of recent weeks...there's been a lot of other stuff going on)...

yesterday maeven did briefly see daddy when he was leaving the house for his regular job and she was just waking up (not sure how much she remembers that though), and tyren did not (i saw him briefly but i don't think he realized i was awake when he left.) then the day progressed and when he got off of work we didn't get to see him because we were on our way out of yoga and heading straight to a birthday party. (kid yoga ends at 5pm and the party started at 5p so we were late to the party)...adam didn't come with us because first of all he rarely attends these things since he tends to hate them...and second because he had plans to go to a fight with his siblings. so shortly after we got to the party, adam was on his way to the fights...which went til late. we got done with our party around 8:30pm and headed home and got ready for bed. kids went to bed/sleep and adam came back after they were already sleeping. *I* got to see him when he came home, but didn't have the energy (after the heat of today and all the excitement of the party) to do more than talk briefly and go to bed fairly early (for me).

then this morning...he had to be down at his mom's house by 7am to help with their massive moving yard sale. so none of us were yet awake when he left. now it is lunch time and adam should hopefully be coming home pretty soon...but i just was realizing that the kids basically haven't seen their dad since thursday night (and today is saturday). i'm not really counting that brief "goodbye" that maeven said to him on his way to work friday morning.

anyway, that's maybe normal for some families...but its so NOT for ours. and its completely unacceptable to me. (doesn't mean it was something that could have or should have been changed, but still i don't like it and never will. neither does adam) i do manage when i have to. obviously this was something that just happened and we're dealing with it. but we do all we can to avoid this sort of thing. it makes adam sad and me grumpy. the kids have me all day, every day. especially since maeven homeschools, so they don't get away from me a lot. (although i do arrange different things for her...she's still with me a lot more than a public schooled kid would be with their mom)...so its time with daddy that they look forward to. he's the one that plays with them. i'm too caught up in all the work of running a home. not that i've done all that great of a job of it. but i hate to play, and i am always stressed about what's not getting done around here so i really just am not the playful parent. i DO provide other things for them that they equally need...stability, obviously, and emotional security and love, and i do work hard at getting them some interesting and educational things regularly thrown into their lives to keep their childhoods enriching.

right now i'm at an all-time low with this, though (sadly) because its FRIGGIN HOT!! (and i just DON'T cope well with heat), and because i'm SICK OF BEING A SINGLE MOM (which i don't obviously cope well with)...and so my cup hasn't been filled lately and i'm running on empty.

i'm not at the END of my rope, mind you. i've had much worse before and i'm sure i will again. i'm just in a slump and i'm working on trying to figure out a way out of it...which is hard without adam around to lend a hand. it just puts me in survival mode, and not quality mode.

oh and it is INEVITABLE that during a time when i could really use them...my parents go out of town. it never fails. every time adam has stuff to do and it would sure be nice to just go hang with my parents so that i can get a little adult interaction and help entertaining squabbling and whiney children...that always seems to be when they are gone. ARGH.

i know, i know, again... "wah! i don't have family living near me...i NEVER get any help." well, that's not MY life. i DO have parents here and they DO help me (when they can) and its wonderful and i know that's wonderful for us but its not luck. we planned it this way. we stay in this shit hole of a town BECAUSE of the relationships we have with family here and BECAUSE i will not deprive my children of these people who are really important to them (and because i never had these relationships when i was a child with my extended family, i want it for my children). if you chose to live elsewhere from yours or them from you, for whatever reasons (very valid reasons, i'm sure...everyone has their own reality) that's your life and your reality and i'm sure you are dealing with it the best you can. but that's not MY reality. so it irks me when i could sure use them and they are gone. its just an inconvenience, not a huge gigantic deal. just annoys me because it seriously has been a pattern that has repeated a lot lately. UGH. especially since they took on this church in another town that is an hour and half away so they are away EVERY weekend (they leave saturday afternoon and don't come back til sunday evening)...and weekends are when adam does his extra shoots, of course (usually saturday afternoon/evenings, which is when my folks are gone). so there's no one to hang with on weekends when i'm at whit's end. (i don't impose on friends on weekends cuz they are having their own quality family time). i just have to deal. which i do, of course. i just hate it.

and just when i start to get a social life of sorts. 2 weeks in a row i got to go to the movies (both to see "mama mia". and it was really nice. but anyway i'm just whining. it has to be done sometimes and this is my blog and this is what i am allowed to do here. :)

ok i feel better now and adam should be home pretty soon and my kids seem to be entertaining themselves ok right now so i better go get myself something to eat before i get REALLY grouchy. :)