Discovery: The dog and I have evolved.

This one has been coming to me in pieces. First, Glory and her hubby were here for the holidays and OH was our dog happy!!! He's missed the two older kids since they've moved away and that's to be expected, but it breaks my heart for him how things have evolved in the meantime.

We got him as a little pup from the SPCA. Charming was SO excited that we had our first dog that he instantly claimed responsibility for Barkley. He was the one that went to obedience training with us, took Barkley on walks/runs, let Barkley sleep IN his bed with him, made sure he was fed, let in and out and LOVED! Glory did pretty good with attention when Charming was on EOW visits with XI, (She stayed home to work mostly, that and her social life!) but we all knew that Barkley was Charming's dog even though he has always been our family dog! Charming moved out after 2 years and Glory handled the loving and a lot of the maintenance care for Barkley, just not the walks/runs. She moved out in two more years. It is now 2+ years since, and coming up on three. Everything changes with time.

Barkley was in heaven when everyone was here for the holidays! He didn't actually seem to irritate anyone during that time too, imagine that?!

I started thinking about the differences. Charming & Glory (Then) vs Mystery & Jabber (Now), and how Barkley is interacted with by each 'team'. Then Barkley had attention that included speaking to him kindly, petting him, caring for him and interacting with him of their own free will. Now Barkley gets let into the house without a word after Daddy or I holler to the kids that are downstairs on the same level that Barkley is (and that much closer to hear him barking outdoors?) to let him inside the house. Now when one of them speaks to him it is usually in very negative tones and only for the purpose of demanding something, directing something, or because it was absolutely necessary to interact with him for one reason or another.

If you don't need him, then why would you consider him? He's nothing but a pain in the butt that you have to bother yourself to get up and let him in when you could have been relaxing. Bother yourself to reach into the bag of food and get 3 cups of his food out and into his bowl, and then geezo-peezo he needs water too! Ugh! Oh, and the bowl apparently cleans itself because we don't know how to do it. There's a boot tray under the bowls to catch 'debris' and that gets moved when we are compelled to sweep and mop the floor weekly, but cleaning out the tray is something that we need to be directed to do every couple of weeks or so. So, maintenance is mandatory, but only when told to by the adults. Why would you do it otherwise?

Barkley doesn't come to YOU when he wants something because he knows (yes, has evolved and learned) that you will ignore him 98% of the time unless you are told by an adult to do the same thing that Barkley wanted you to do in the first place. Barkley isn't dumb! He'll come upstairs and drop his signals so that we will call to them (downstairs and closer) to do it! Sometimes Mystery forgets and thinks she's an adult. Yes, perfectly normal, but she gets reminded some of the time that she's not. Usually in the form of Daddy shouting HER name for maintenance for at least a week!

"Then" he was loved, got attention including addressed warmly and was physically healthy (plenty of exercise). "Now" he's ignored or groaned at, spoken to harshly and given one or two word directions, and getting very heavy and unhealthy because he gets so little exercise. One thing that I will say that I feel bad about is not walking him, but he wasn't trained well by Charming. Charming trained him to respond to him and Barkley doesn't even begin to go for walks the same with anyone else. He's horrible! Pulls and pulls, darts around and pulls, doesn't come to you when you let him have some slack and you need to call him back. And he's big! I'm sure he's at least my weight, and he has four legs on the ground to stand his ground against me! If he wants to go smell that hydrant then by gosh he's going to! That alone severely limits the efforts to take him for walks and he has to get his exercise running around our back yard.

I will add here that there have been periods when both Mystery and Jabber have allowed him to sleep in their beds with them. Mystery has a queen sized bed and got tired of kicking him off the bed because he'd just sneak back up. Jabber liked having him sleep with him until he found a tic in his bed one day. Please! Don't wash the dog, right?! Just kick him out of bed!

Every now and then Jabber gets ambitious about Barkley. Takes him for a walk while riding his skateboard, plays ball-on-a-rope pulling with him. It might last a couple hours one day it might last for a week that he keeps it up. Barkley is happy for a week.

I feel bad for our dog. If Charming had a place where he could have a dog we would let him have Barkley ONLY because Barkley would be so gosh darn happy and healthy too is my guess! It almost happened about 2 years ago and then fell through. We'd never get rid of him though and that's not what we were trying to do. I just wish that the people in our family would try to be nicer to him and treat him with kindness. Talk to him kindly, pet him, smile at him and let him know that he's loved and appreciated.

And then it hit me. They consider Barkley and I on the same level. Think about it.

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Give me strength

Please. I am sleep deprived right now because I worked an all-nighter last night and then got home and had about 2 hours of sleep before Daisy woke me up. Work sucked because the gal that is the most senior in my section has decided not to speak to me. Hmmm... I'm trying to think if there's a possible connection to me opening my mouth and agreeing with another gal on my last night shift that the first one pisses and moans too much? That she's supposed to be teaching me but chooses when to listen and respond, repeats her boring-ass whines and then tells me that she didn't say "there" she said "here". Yah, right! She was a pain in my @$$ all night last night. Wanna' bet that when everything wasn't finished at the end of her shift she told them what I didn't finish?

That's not even the reason I need strength. Mystery has a friend that I'm introducing in the left column as a New Player. I may have mentioned her before but she now has an official blog name and we're going to call her Pixie. She's the new friend that Mystery can't live without so far this year. The same one that one of the teachers emailed me to say that she was moving seats around because of their social energy during class. Hey, it's high school and that can happen anywhere. Whatever. We have a tiny connection to this girl because she has a relative that is friends with Glory's hubby! LOL, that doesn't give anybody any extra points one way or the other, but an interesting side part of this. We do know the relative a little.

Well, Pixie and her mother were living with the relative, but have apparently been thrown out. They have a place to live in the next town over. Pixie will have to leave school if they stay there. Mystery asked Daddy if Pixie can come and stay with us during the week because her mother doesn't have a car to drive her back and forth to school. Daddy has apparently been actually considering this for a week or so, and today he forwarded Mystery's text message to my phone. Like he's fucking asking me. He did call and said that he would need to get information about how long this would be for. If it's just a couple/few days during a transition then that is something that he would not have a problem with.

You see, we have a precedence here. When Glory was a senior in high school her BFF's mother went out of own for a honeymoon and we let her stay the week. We've always had a standing rule of No Friend Overnights OnA Schoo Night. Mom came back and BFF wasn't getting comfortable with the new step around and she started sleeping in her car instead of going home. I found this out and told her that she needs to sleep here, which she did readily but she never showered or left clothes and we had to make her eat here now and then. LOL, she brought us food from her job very often and it wasn't like she was a charity case! She also provided Glory with transportation to school, dance and work about 90% of the time, which freed up MY car for me! Yahoo!! Hey, they were together 90% of the time anyway, we just let her sleep here.

So, in comparison. Glory had a BFF that slept here, drove her everywhere and probably freed up the phone lines a bit. Mystery would have her BFF that is 16, with no driver's license or transportation, no job and enough of a similar attitude in life to be Mystery's BFF into our home? Yes, we have been open to a 'sad story' before but we weren't adding another person to be responsible for. If the relative won't have them/her, then what makes Daddy think that we need to add that headache to our list of things to be responsible for?

He just doesn't know how to say no to Mystery sometimes. I told him that I don't think it's a good idea unless it's something like strictly for 2-3 days because the mother has a plan and just needs those days for a check to come in or a car to get registered or something. No plan-no kid, comprende? Heck, Mystery doesn't even have a bedroom of her own right now! Yes, it's almost finished and might be done by tomorrow if things go like they're planned, but there are a few "ifs" in there that having Pixie around for just might be the thing that we don't need.

Any last minute ideas on topics to raise with Daddy? My guess is that Pixie is coming home with Mystery today either way, and hoping to seal the deal. Any and all suggestions are welcome, even if you think we should adopt the kiddo!

Internet Social Network and a Blog Meme

I haven't done this for awhile. Check out what it looks like on Mystery's ISN page.

(Clicking on the pic will open it up in a new tab or window!) I haven't been tracking her as much as I have in the past, and some things just don't change! Oh to be a teenager these days, huh?! I would totally be trying to figure out as much as I could with new technology so that I'd be able to do all kinds of sneaky things with it! If my Mom were alive she'd tell you that I was terrible as a teen and always stretched the limits! LOL, the limits have stretched a lot since then!

Blog Meme Alert!!

I got tagged by kwoneshe2 at Storms Never Last and this is my very first time! (Girl, I'm going over to your blog next to leave my comments!!) This was a Sunday Meme, but I'm doing it on Tuesday! So what is it actually called? LOL, I have no clue! If I tagged you then either wait until Sunday or just re-name it like I did!!

Tuesday Meme

1-Were you named after anybody: Yes. One of my Mom's favorite teachers (first name)

2- What’s your favorite lunch meat: turkey ham, Mmmmmm!

3- If you were another person, would you be friends with you: Oh yeah! That sounds like one of those things like getting a wife to do all my chores. LOL, of course!!

4- Do you use sarcasm a lot: I don't think I do. I have people around me using it all the time as a standard way of communicating and it gets really old, really fast. If it wouldn't be funny if i was true/real then it's seriously not funny. I do understand it and I know I hear it in my head often enough, but try not to use it a lot.

5- What is your favorite cereal: Cinnamon Life

6- What is your favorite ice cream: I don't have a clear favorite but a few that I toy with like Black Cherry, Butter Crunch and maybe every now and then Fudge Ripple. I usually think salty, not sweet so you can have the ice cream!

7- Do you think you are strong: I always bounce back, so I must be! You know that saying that you wouldn't be given more than you can handle? I wish I couldn't always handle so much!

8- What is your least favorite thing about yourself: Physically, 'the girls' could be an actual"A" instead of wannabes! I've nursed my babies and have memories of "C", but just want to be able to wear more styles!

9- What was the last thing you ate: A turkey and cheese sandwich with mayonaisse and mustard on seeded soft rye bread.

10- If you were a crayon, what color would you be: Aquamarine. It always comes out so nice and bright on paper!

11- What is your favorite scent: Lily of the Valleys

12- Favorite sports to watch: Any sport my kid is in. If they ever make it to televised then I'd watch that too. Otherwise, No thanks!

13- What is your hair color: I think the box said Medium Brown.

14- Do you prefer scary movies or happy ending movies: Happy Endings! Corny? Sure!! Chick Flicks Rule!!

15- What is your favorite food: Popcorn! Yes, I'll have butter in it, but don't drown it, ok?

16- What is the last movie you watched: Iron Man, on Pay Per View!

17- Do you prefer summer or winter: Summer! I love wearing less clothes!

18- What is your favorite dessert: Pineapple Upside Down Cake, freshly baked!

19- What is your favorite book: "No Flying in the House". A kid's book that I remember my 3rd grade teacher reading to our class! I read it to Glory when she was younger and now waiting for Daisy's turn! I loved the make believe parts and wanted them to be real SO badly! Oh, and the coolest books on the planet are all kid's books! In case you didn't know that!

20- What are your favorite TV shows: Gray's Anatomy, Eli Stone, NCIS, Lipstick Jungle, CSI (all) , and there are more but those start of the list for sure!

And now I have to tag people! I'm not sure if it's 5 or 6 because I was the "and" on her list before, but I'll tag 6! I sure hope that if I tag you that it's not one of those things that bugs you and you get a chance to play along!

Let's tag:

1) dragonmctt

2) Bethany

3) DragonflyMama

(And for some that still come by and comment please don't let this scare you off! But you know you want to get back to posting again, right?!)

4) SMILF at Wifezilla Diaries

5) B'sMommy

6) Medea

Have fun everyone and I can't wait to see your replies!

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Have you heard that "40 is the new 20" stuff?!

Not so true when it comes to some things! Among them today let's just say that this 47 yr old body is doing okay with overnight shifts, but I remember doing them when I was 20 and used to leave work and go directly to the beach for the day. This is quite a bit different!

The job is kind of physical. A bunch of things are timed and graphed somewhere. They keep you moving, walking, lifting and adjusting. (If you haven't seen the post from the other day this is a seasonal retail job.) There's not time to get sleepy except for when they have you take a break! Yes, there was a point last night when I wished I could have worked through it just so it wouldn't slow me down!!

They say I'm learning well, and showing motivation. I feel like I might get flushed down the throne if I don't! They explain things and then you roll with it. I have to say that one thing that sucks is needing these stupid reading glasses Raising and lowering either the glasses or my head is a pain in the butt! It feels like a lot of focusing and refocusing that most everyone around me doesn't seem to be doing. Between that, hot flashes and I'm 1 1/2 weeks into Cha.ntix (stop smoking meds and probably going through withdrawal stuff) had a bit of an unsettling weekend. But it has been exhilirating?!

Now, totally off-topic here! I miss my graphics editor! I can't load it on this old computer and can't make goofy little photos or labels to add to posts withut transferring from an even older laptop to here. The darn thing shuts OFF with no warning, but if I do things fast before it heats up I can get a couple little things done! Cross your fingers for me that I'll be able to get something hooked up soon! I know my hubby will probably spend too much money on a new computer for me for Christmas, and then I'll want to strangle him for spending too much (but LOVE he computer so much I can't actually strangle him)!

So yes, this is a strange post today! This is what happens when you've had 6 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours! I have tonight off and go back tomorrow night. With any luck they'll offer me an extra shift on Wednesday or Thursday, which I'll take. They offered me one tonight but I knew that I won't have enough sleep because there's nobody else to watch Daisy during the day. I did stay an extra hour last night, so it's not like I just turn them own when they ask and I hope they remember that!

Think you would or could do it? After so many years of not changing your body's whole timing?

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Some background

I'm not sure what started the spiral exactly. It seems like it was bound to happen, and just needed a kick in the pants along the way. Think about this. Mystery's mother walked out when she was 5 years old. She barely called and hardly visited for the next 3 years, and she lived in the same town. It was probably worse on Mystery than Jabber because she was old enough to understand that her mother was making a choice not to spend time with her. She learned about excuses pretty young.

Then I came along and I was really tight with my kids, especially with Glory. The mother/daughter stuff was a lot of what you'd want it to be, very close and active with each other constantly. So Mystery sees this and probably started to cling to her Daddy a little more for awhile and there was surely some jealousy mixed in there too because she had been the 'house mother' for a couple years.

When I was pregnant with Daisy is probably when it all started changing. Mystery and Glory shared a room and although Glory wasn't around too much they were often at odds with normal stuff like "Stop borowing my clothes!!!" I was harder on Glory about chores and things that I wanted her to be an example of and that had to have sucked for her. I know it did. Worse, nobody cared about the example and they did whateverTF they wanted! Daddy still wouldn't choose a battle about little stuff, but waited until the huge snowball hit! Snow boulder!

So, less attention for Mystery right? Nomal actions/reactions on both sides. Oh, one surprise though. Mystery never told anyone that she had a new sister on the way. Glory invited one of Mystery's friends and the Mom to the baby shower and they were the only ones that knew until Daisy was a couple weeks old. Mystery began using a crying baby as an excuse for lack of sleep to her teachers! Shoot, she was up sneaking her butt on the phone until all hours and paying ZERO attention to the baby! Daisy got sick at a couple months old. She got one of those things that she was just getting shots for but had already been exposed to. (I can't remember if I've shared this and will have to go back in the achives to see!) She was hospitalized in PICU for just short of a month and I stayed with her 95% of the time she was there. When we came home things at our house had gone haywire! Daddy let the animals run the zoo! Oh, he came and told on them while we were there, but there's only so much I could do by phoning it in!

It has to be right around then that they started going to TW's for more than one night here or there on weekends. About 6 months later I told Daddy that things were changing too much and they were disconnecting. We should keep them home EOW and establish 'normal' with our family. He sounded just plain tired of dealing with conflicts and would only agree to keeping them one weekend a month. That last for about 7 months. Lately I can tell you that I'm tired and relieved when they're gone.

It's because there's nothing here when they're here. I can tell you that I have heard the two of them talking and Mystery has blurted little things when she is ticked off. They don't need me for anything. There is no doubt in my mind that TW has drilled it into their heads that I am nothing to them and they do not need me for anything. If they want something they should never ask me for it. Half of the reason for that is because I insist that they ask in the form of a question with manners. If there's no please in it then I ask them to repeat it. Heck I did the same thing with my bio kids and it didn't kill them! If you want something then ask, instead of telling someone that you want it and expecting them to jump.

An example. We live less than a mile from the school that Mystery attends. I used to get up and give Glory a ride to school when she asked. She got a ride sometimes too, so it was inconsistent. If there was snow on the car then I expected Glory to help me wipe/scrape it off and getting the car warmed up, possibly bundling up Daisy while I did that. Something! Not just at her beck and call. Mystery is a whole different kid though. Because she would have had to phrase it as a question in the first place she wouldn't do it. She informed Daddy that she was going to have him drop her off at MIL's house and she'd have her drive her to school 20 minutes later. Turns out that she informed MIL too. And they did it for most of one year! In the spring MIL apparently put her foot down and told her to walk from here because the weather was nice enough. The next year she began having Daddy bring her to the school when he left for work and she would wait until classes started. Doing this made her arrive 40 minutes before! What teen do you know that wants to get up and go to school 40 minutes before it starts? Heck, almost a half hour before any other kids get there! But all this happens just so she won't have to ask me for a thing.

LOL, she walks a lot of places. She won't ask me, and Daddy has stopped being a constant taxi for her, citing that she needs to ask instead of inform him. Yayyy!! He picks and chooses when he'll go with things like that, but I'll take them where I can get them! In truh she only half makes her plans and then ends up calling him to come and get her when the plans that she said she made don't materialize. I have to say that I don't like that she's 16 yrs old and walks around after dark by herself at times. We're in a pretty quiet residental neighborhood, but sometimes that is not the place to bewalking all by yourself. If I never let Glory do it at that age then why would I want her to? Shoot! Her with her tight jeans and booty all out there and everything! Looking all badass, but it's all a bunch of hype! She can talk a good game, and I think her friends are her friends so that they aren't on her bad side but she's all talk. Trust me!

I'm not trying to pick on her. I'm trying to survive around here. I take so much crap from my step-kids that I would never take from Daddy even. Being ignored to my face, if I ask them to help do something one way then it seems like they bend over backwards NOT to do it. And lied to. They know that Daddy chooses his battle a lot more lax than I do and they rely on that so they can shortcut everything. He gets sick of me telling him about whatever one of them did, but he won't do anything that would allow me to have any final authority. Hey, if he'd let me set a limit and then tell them that if they don't do it he'll make it 3x worse then maybe they'd start listening to me, ya think?

I just know that we are only ever in the same room at the same time for a VERY small percentage of any day. When he's not here neither one of them has no problem ignoring me, walking away while I'm still talking or doing an exact opposite of whatever it was right in front of me. Saying they're sorry means get off my back but I'll do it again every time.

A counselor/shrink would have a field day with us, right!

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I picked her name very well!

I'm talking about Mystery. She sure is one!

To update on her schoolwork this year it seems that she has truly flipped a switch somewhere. Her grades came out for mid-term progress reports and she's got all B's!! Yayyy! We know that she's entirely capable of these, but in the last two years it was a struggle to get her to bring home even one B! LOL, something tells me that TW may have promised to buy her a car or something if she keeps them up! I know that Daddy read her the riot act before school started and said that there are no second chances this year for screw-ups. Who knows what made the difference, but it's wonderful that she's finally succeeding!

Fast forward to this week. She had summer reading to do for english class and she has had the books long past their due date. She's been reminded of this and Daddy told her that she needs to 'handle that', which she's just plain forgotten. Heck I go to the library once or twice a week and it would have been easy enough to ask me to take them back for her, and she can pay her fines later but at least they wouldn't be accumulating. After I got home from the library this week I saw that she'd left her books out on the kitchen table. Well shoot, if I had been asked I would have taken them but how am I supposed to know they were there?

Daddy told her that she can't go anywhere with friends until she takes care of it. He reminded her that I go to the library each week and that her grandmother works right down the street from there and would probably do it for her if asked. Guess who she asked? My guess is that because she doesn't have to actually ask her grandmother (but can just tell her that she needs for it to be done) is why she asked her. Me? I like things in the form of a question, with the word please attached. Gee whiz, if she asked me to do something for her then that would just be the end of the world wouldn't it? It's much easier to go through Grandma, have her drive around to places that she wasn't going in the first place than to ask me.

Part of me is relieved when she doesn't ask me for things. She's been 16 since this spring and hasn't gotten her driver's permit yet. When she gets it she already knows that she won't be asked if she wants to drive with me in my car. I told her last spring that since she has decided not to have conversations with me or consider much of anything that I have to say that I'm not going to be the one to take her. Heck, I did the same thing with Charming when he was that age because he gave me attitude and after driving with me twice I refused after that. His father let him when he went with him and then he took the class, so that was about it. I had/have no sympathy!! Anyone else have teen stuff like this?! Fun, eh?!

I'm going to stop now because I need my day to go better. I have a medical test this morning that entails a 'clean out' ahead of time and was up many times last night. Time for a nap!

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Sending stuff to our house

Anyone else get this crap? Maybe it's one of my hang-ups from days gone by that I just need to get over?

Jabber came home from TW's house with a heat pad/massager for his bed. It looks like it's supposed to be for a large chair, but he's using it for his bed. That and he brought back the shorts that I sent with him that she bought for him and he's not wearing anymore this season. He has a lot of crap that he doesn't take care of and I know it's kind of a boy thing, but why should we be the one to have to deal with his excess? I can deal with the shorts because it's clothes and seasonal stuff just gets dealt with. This massager thing? If she wants to buy him stuff for her house then I don't have anything to say about that, but whoTF does she think she is supplying him with crap for our house? If we wanted him to have something like that doesn't she think we'd have gotten him one? I swear it's just her way of trying to be in control.

I know that I have a thing about this. When Charming and Glory were younger there was a 2+ year period when their father didn't pay support. He knew that I was living 'in the system' and because he 'had to struggle so much' he somehow decided that we didn't need it more than him. By a year into it we were accunulating quite a bit of debt because that's the only way that we were able to make up for it. He worked under the table because he could find work like that sporadically and he somehow made it work. (I know that Sparkle was actually taking care of the big stuff and he's SO lucky she loved him and covered for his ass!)

Along the way he started to send a couple small things to my house. It got so that he would send some food after awhile and it was shit that I didn't buy for my kids. The sugary cereals, donuts, chips and other junk food. Not that I never bought any of that, but it started to tick me off that he could send food but he couldn't pay his support and then I could handle my business at MY house. This was absolutely one of those ways that he tried to control things at my house. One day when he sent a box of food home with them I grabbed the box off the table, brought it downstairs and then opened the back of his car and put the box in it. I had told him (not just through the kids) that I didn't want him sending food to my house anymore. The whole thing blew up.

He followed me upstairs to the apartment, busted in through my closed back door and then threatened to kill me. There was a lot of shouting and him pushing against the door with me trying to close it. Yes, with my son right in the next room. I got a restraining order. I never thought he'd be physically dangerous before that, but I never would have thought he'd have done THAT, so who knows how much further he'd go?

Tell me please, are there things that your BM does to try to be controlling at your house? Am I nuts or should she keep this crap at HER house?

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If you don't like it then just go ask Daddy!

I should preface everything that I say to Jabber and Mystery with that phrase! Because I'm obviously never the final fucking word around here!

The boy needs help with organizing things. Partly because he's a boy and partly because of his ADHD. He has this fun little way of having a fucking answer for everything, even if there wasn't a damn question asked. If he said that's why he did "x" then it's justified. End of story.

Well, maybe it makes fucking sense to him, but that doesn't make it fucking right! It may also not be a big fucking deal, but when you add all the damn little things together then I just plain get screwed. I've tried telling Daddy that since he gets tired of having to come home and straighten things out then maybe if he'd give me a little bit of authority he wouldn't have to! Most of the time my crap is with Jabber just because Mystery doesn't give a crap and I've given up on so many things with her. If she wants to be an ignorant, selfish child and have every damn thing her way then she's going to fucking find out one of these days that it just ain't like that!

She can't get a job. Maybe because she doesn't like know like how to like speak english? Her nervous laugh and then follow up sarcasm probably doesn't impress any prospective employers either. Minimal effort is a typical teen thing and I realize that but when it comes time to MAKE an effort she doesn't even seem to realize what would it would look like to make one. When she isn't getting just what she wants here by simply stating that she has already planned it then she just runs off to MIL's house around the corner. This usually puts me on MIL's glare list and I don't get spoken to for over a month. Whatever. They can baby her all they want and take care of her ass for the rest of her life. I just can't wait until she gets the hell out of this house! I'm not really pissed at her today, but those are some things that are part of the package.

Jabber loses things all the time and forgets them or just plain assumes that someone else will cover his butt. He has more places to put things in his bedroom than anyone else in the house, but every time he has to put things away and he doesn't feel like doing it he makes up a new place for stuff. What is a dresser for? Clothes, right? Well, because he doesn't want to pay attention he has made his top drawer (which used to be for shirts, not underwear like most 'normal' people) into his junk drawer. I do understand a junk drawer, but that means stuff that doesn't have another place to go, right? In his case it's also a transition drawer for stuff that he just didn't feel like putting where it goes. This can include clothes.

One drawer for pants and shorts, one drawer for jammies and long-johns and one for socks, undies and UNDER shirts. Right? Last spring because he decided that he no longer wants to fold shirts he has been hanging ALL of his shirts in the closet, except for pajamas and UNDERS. Want to know why I'm doing that one in all caps? Because it is supposed to be the ones that are worn under! Damn, that was hard, right?! To him that just means the ones that are supposed to be worn under, but if he feels like being 'cool' then he'll wear them wherever. I'm sorry but I don't approve of wife-beater shirts being worn as public clothing. Between that and the pants hanging down your ass I just cringe every time I see them. You DO know that the pants thing started in jail, right? The convicts had to wear jail issue and since you can't wear them too small many had to wear them too big. Then they hang.
NOT something that I believe that ANY of our children should aspire to! Call me old fashioned! Even Charming knows that I will tell him to put a belt on or do something so that I don't have to look at his butt or his drawers. It's funny, but he listens to me when I say that too!

The things that's pissing me off today is that yesterday he decided to start screwing with things and put things where there is no order. If he could do it well then I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it, but it's just another means to escape doing anything without being half-assed. His stuff is thrown in new drawers and the entertainment center. Hey! How about getting some of the junk out of the junk drawer and into there so that you can put clothes in the drawer where they actually belong?! Ok, this isn't even what's pissing me off. Last night I told him that when he finished his daily job (which I had helped him with initially and then he had slacked off on and it could have been done 3 hours earlier instead of waiting until right before bedtime) I told him that it needs to be done the right way. He gets fucking paid to do this job and then he only fucking halfway does it, and expects to get paid?! After doing his job he needed to bring order back to his clothes in the drawers or I would be taking them out and putting some order to them myself, which would mean that he may NEVER find some of them again.

About 10 minutes later while I was putting Daisy to sleep he came upstairs and I heard him whispering to Daddy in our room. He brought some clothes up with him and I'll bet you $1,000,000 that he told his father that he didn't want to put his stuff in order like I asked him to.

Call me a control freak if you wanna', but when I told you something and you fucking run to Daddy to screw me over, then I'm pissed at YOU! Oh yes, Daddy gets it too. He fucking knows better than to think that this is an out of the blue thing with Jabber. Maybe it doesn't make a ton of sense on the choose your battle scale of things, but if I could get some fucking backup on some of the smaller stuff then there wouldn't be as many fucking battles. Just call me tired today. Tired of feeling that they are sponges and all I get is the wrung out nasty stuff that is left in a puddle when you wring it out.

I have to move on to other things today. Guess what I'm doing? I'm in a cleaning mood and I'm going to clean the crap out of some parts of this house! Ha! Daddy will know what that means when he gets home, but my guess is that he won't ask until way later! When he's looking for his stuff!

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I have to say too that I don't always cuss that much, or I make it look like I would cuss but try to be a little polite with stars instead of some of the letters. I also have other online communities that I'm a part of. I have a private blog for my family. It's mostly the pretty one. Cute or embarrassing photos of family members are posted there along with the basic updates of things going on. Not real big on the colorful, actual commentary there because it's family that I might not share all of the information with, kwim?

So I come here. They don't know about this blog. Nobody who knows me does and I kind of like it that way because then I can vent like this when I need to. I am part of a message board that are women from a specific topic area and it's private and we all talk about everything there. Well, some things I just don't bring up there too much anymore because they have no clue about step family stuff. In their beautiful world with their beautiful husbands and their beautiful children who sidestep from time to time my stuff about wanting to call the cops on Mystery gets met with complete disbelief and poor you responses. Go to counseling. Screw that! I want someone that reads to tell me that she sure did sound like she was out of line, being a bitch or whatever was the case at the time.

How about the rest of you? I mean the four of you that come by here more than once? Do others know that you blog? Read your stuff? Are they IRL folks or online pals that know you from another group? Ever get an itch to reveal youself?

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You HAVE to choose?

Oh, NO I don't and neither should they! HAVE to, that is.

It's just not necesary to be that dumb. Mystery's school "ECI" (Emergency Contact Information) sheet came home and there are some things that these people just have never gotten right! That and I knew that we were adding TW to the mail list this year so that she doesn't 'borrow' our copy of progress reports and report cards and then never return them. This is something that she has always been completely with her rights to do, but for whatever reason has not asserted herself. Well Boo! If she doesn't want it then she can call the school and tell them! How's that going to look/sound?!

But this wasn't even the 'fun' of yesterday. On Jabber's form they had him checked off for Black and for White. I told the lady at Mystery's school office that they had apparently switched her status because it has NEVER been simply one of the other. (I think I would know!) She stood there and showed me the computer screen and said that she can't change that.

I love when I have a clue about how to work a computer and other people don't! Hold down the control key to select more than one from the list ya dummy! Ok, not everyone knows that stuff but when you have a job which requires some computer skills you'd think that this might be one of the basic ones? Shoot, to me that's like not knowing how to copy & paste! I mentioned along the way here that the folks at Jabber's school in town are capable of doing that with his information and that I really thought that since they use the same system that they would be able to do so as well. I asked if I needed to call the superintendent's office to make sure that this is a function that the schools were capable of and then I ended up leaving the office with her and the young gal beside her talking about me. You can tell when that happens because you turn around and their mouths are in a freeze frame, right?

I went home and called the data people at the school department. I figure that I can ask them if the system is capable of making this choice before I go over everyone's heads. After waiting on hold for a minute she told me to talk to the VP at Mystery's school and that she had consulted with another worker in her office who confirmed that this IS something that the system is capable of. I got voicemail when I got through the VP's line and I haven't gotten the call back that I asked for, but it's very interesting to see that the online system now reflects the change that I requested in the first place!

Time to get the old biddy behind the counter to drop the attitude. Maybe she doesn't think people should be both, or able to choose more than one? Maybe she doesn't care? White privilege isn't always in your face stuff, you know? I think it is important for the statistics for the school as well as the more important point of not making a child choose. Heck, if your mother is french and your father is greek then which one are you supposed to choose on a form? How do you make the choice? Choose which family customs you are most familiar with and practice more? What if one isn't more than the other? I remember looking at one of these graphs back when we were looking to buy our home in this city. Wondering how much of the statistics are actually true? My preschooler isn't in the public school system yet but please know that I'm prepared to start out with her from the very beginning of Kindergarten and work my way through bugging the snot out of people that could care less because it doesn't affect them!

Let me get off my pedestal now and go do something that isn't going to nag at my brain! I just had to say that these people that work for us really ought to be checked on their own biases and how what they do and say affects other people. Whether they care or not.

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It's that tone

The tone that drives me nuts. The tone that they don't speak to me in, but I get to listen to them speak to just about everyone else with. It's not just a teen thing because they've been perfecting this one for years. Years before I came on the scene. Trust me!


First of all you have to hear it. Picture one word. Daddy. Now take that word and put a whine on it. Now take that word (and whine) and add a WhyTF are you bothering me tone that makes it into a question. Now hear that just about every time Mystery is approached by her father last night. Jabber doesn't do it often (thank godness), but he does know how.

Daddy says "Here Mystery, make sure that you come over here and wash the grease off the stove where it splattered."

We hear "Daddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then "I didn't do over there yet!" Whatever! We've BTDT and know what we're talking about! It wouldn't be the first time! Oh, and along with the WhyTF part comes a stop bothering me part to it that is either implied by tone or sometimes actually spoken out loud.

But doesn't that sound just piss you off to have to hear it? It does for me! When you think about it I can tell you for a certainty that she knows not to speak to ME in that voice because not only will I call her on it, but if I have to tell on her I will! Most of all just calling her on it works by now, but trust me that in the first couple of years she felt that she could speak to me in any way she wanted to. So why does she speak to other people like that? Because they LET her!

My guess is that most of them don't care. Or care enough. I can tell you that Daddy and his family (MIL, SIL) don't feel like bothering with redirecting. In my opinion they are all doing a great disservice to anyone in earshot and also to the child who learns that this form of communicating is acceptable and normal. This girl speaks like the world owes her something most of the time. And she wonders why she can't get a job!

Tell me please. Is it just me that thinks that this is nuts? That raising children who speak their mind without consideration for others is not doing them any favors? All about me. Ugh!

I've already raised a couple of kids and it didn't kill them that I didn't allow this form of expression. I guess it concerns me more because besides it being totally irritating to have to listen to, I have a young child here. One that copies from her siblings and believes that they are examples for her. It's funny but Daddy often shows that he has similar expectations of her that I do, but he doesn't have the same for Mystery and Jabber. Ugh! Like he already gave up on them?
Talk to me?

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Just Charming

My son is just that. It was not hard at all to find a name for him when I started this blog, not hard at all!

Daisy and I saw him last week for only a few minutes while he was at work. He lives almost an hour away from us and hasn't come to our house since last spring, so when we're in town we say hello even if it's only a hit and run kind of thing. When you've only got a couple of minutes part of me says that you really try to make the best of them, couldn't you?

Ok, maybe I'm a little jealous. He told me that he spent time at XI's family summer place over Labor Day weekend. That's not a surprise because he's been doing that most of his life. I do get one holiday by the way and that's Christmas Eve. Without fail he has been here even since he has grown and left the next. (When they were growing up he and Glory spent one year with XI and Sparkle in CE but we vowed never to do that again because it was just so unusual. That and those two split up!) Anyway, sometimes it sort of sucks to not be considered for a holiday.

What ticks me off though is that XI's other kid was there with his family from out of state. Remember the kid that is only a couple months younger than Glory and also related to them on that same side of the family. His mother - the bitch that screwed my husband and then when she had her kid and I tried to figure out how to have an extended family with - asked Charming how his sister Daisy and I are doing. Dumbass Charming says that we're doing fine and then gave them the generic update.

When he told me this I grimaced and he got that WTF look on his face. Then he said that I should be giving her credit for making an effort at being nice. This was where I got the WTF look on my face! I just wish like hell that he'd understand that she could give a rat's ass about me and his sister, but she is making an effort to communicate with him. And show care and concern? Yeah, right! She probably knows that he doesn't know any better and that the only reason to mention us is that she has no clue about anything in his life.

I despise very few people in my life and it's not like this is a forgiving thing. It's more like you are so stupid and selfish and the last thing that I want to do is feed into your life in any way, shape or form. Don't fucking use me to get to my kid! IF she and I were to ever cross paths again there is no chance on the planet that I would share any information with her except maybe that I've wondered if she's still as big of a bitch as she was back then!

I just felt like beefing about that one. Let's see if there's anything better to write about soon! I don't really like thinking about that crap!

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Would there be, could there be

a time when you can imagine getting along with the former spouse? Right after hell freezes over you say?! Yepper, same here!

She used to love me! In all fairness to her that was years before, and I was involved in the life of only one of her children then. I was Mystery's pre-K teacher. I was also the visiting cousin's teacher the year before that so I had some exposure to some family members but not a lot. TW used to be the one that came and do the drop-off and pick-up, and I only met Mystery's father one time when he came to pick up. That would be when Jabber was born, and I don't think I even knew that TW was pregnant until my future SIL (who worked at the same pace) told me about her new nephew.

But the sun used to rise and set with me! I was a pretty darn cool pre-K teacher and TW knew that she loved the way that the year went for Mystery. When Jabber got old enough we knew that he would go into my classroom just because I had a prior relationship with the family. That's just the way it was done around there. TW was so happy that he got put in my class and the sun rose and set with me again! A couple weeks later they moved Jabber only because they were re-assigning by birthdates and he was 6 months too young for my classroom. It's a much longer story than this but it was several months later when I began dating Daddy. Because of ethics and all I was not going to get nailed for "Daddy chasing". You can imagine what a huge taboo that was?! I wasn't hated until a month or so after that when TW found out what 'the girlfriend's' name was. Now I'm pond scum. Whatever. The information that I had on her by that time didn't make me want to hang with her anyway!

I do know how to be friendly with others. Look at me and Sparkles! If that don't beat all, right?! TW decided early on that she was going to be a bitch toward me and that's just the way it was. I can see resenting that someone else spends more time with your kids, but then go ahead and spend that time yourself!! You could have been doing that all along!

I do wish that she could be more of a human being. It's just not possible, I swear! Whatever she does she must poison her children so that they have "0" (that a zero!) respect for me and will try to buck the system around here wherever possible. I swear that I'm going to give her 90% credit for all of the hating that Mystery has bestowed on me! For the first couple of years here she still stayed in the background and had little to do with her kids. When Daisy was born and Mystery wanted more attention, she somehow seemed to either forgive TW for the years of abandonment or decided that it was payback time and she was going to guilt TW into it.

I just can't picture TW dropping her hateful stance toward me. If she were to ever do so I can picture her trying to communicate with me before she might try to with Daddy because he really isn't into giving her any more chances for much of anything. That would be a very long road, though one that I just can't imagine travelling.

So... would you, could you imagine getting along with your spouse's former spouse?

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Curses!!

It's all Sparkle's fault! We went to visit her and Lolli and she had a big Bar.bie swimming pool in her kitchen! It's about 18 years old (or more?) with the waterfall, waterslide, and deck! All of the dolls and accessories that Sweetie and Glory had when they were little have been passed down! When Ceecee was old enough for them Glory and I had passed hers along to her sis and Sparkles keeps EVERYTHING!! For all I know it was Sparkles from when she was little, and saved for her 'someday kids'! VERY possible!

Now all Daisy wants is Bar.bie! Sparkles gave her when we were there, but Daisy doesn't know that it came from her. We didn't want Lolli thinking that she had to guard her stuff so that Daisy doesn't take off with it all, and we didn't want Daisy thinking that she can have Lolli's stuff. It really is being passed along from sister, to sister, to sister though! Geez, I never thought I'd see some of that stuff again when we handed it over!

So now we need some friends for Bar.bie. I went on e.bay and found some ethnic dolls and have won three auctions so far, spending roughly $25 total. We'll be getting 4 that are nude ethnic dolls and then there's a 'lot' with over a dozen mix and match dolls. I'll bring out a few and then when she breaks, loses or chews the fingers off one of them I'll toss it and another will magically appear!

I had kind of hoped that we wouldn't be going through this stage with Daisy, because I've altered my opinion of these particular dolls along these many years. You know what though? I wasn't trying to have her bigtime into princess stuff either and she has been fully engrossed for about a year! Oh well... I'm not giving up, I'm just saying... I know that you think it's really funny, but curses on you Sparkles!

Today's question: Have you had anything like this 'come back' to you? What was it and did you want it the second (third?) time around?

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How many friends do you have?

I have a best friend. Curiously enough I'm probably not her best friend! Ok, it's Sparkle and we'll be together as extended family forever, but she IS the person that I want to call and tell something new and exciting to. The person that I want to vent to, to call and tell her to go beat somebody up for me. We were both with the XI for years and know that torment, we both married again and had an AMA (Advanced Maternal Age) baby 2 months apart. When I need someone and need to ask for something big she's been there and the same goes for her asking me for things. It doesn't happen often but we both know that the other one is coming through just because it's a big deal to ask. My 'chosen sister'. Our biggest thing that keeps us apart is the miles between us, since I moved about 30+ miles away ten years ago. If she doesn't call me I call her and it's a pretty darn mutual thing!

I have another friend in that same town, I can pick up the phone and call her and it only takes about 20 minutes to feel like we've caught up except for the juicy details. She's another one of my friends that has kiddos the age of my big kids and then soooo many years later here comes one more! Yes, she was another AMA Mama, and we ought to stick together right?! There's only one 'problem' in our relationship and that is that she never calls. I'm always the one that picks up the phone, drops an email or swings by her house when I'm in town. Her oldest DD goes to college in my town, so she's here during the school year on weekends to drive her home just about every weekend, but hasn't popped in here. She's talked about it, but it hasn't happened. She has been here once and it was for my wedding back in 2005 and it was great that she and her girls made it, so she does know how to find her way here!

I started thinking about 2 years ago - probably after and 0pr@h show or something like it - that if I do all the calling then are they really friends, or just people that I know?

I guess I don't have a long list of things that are required to be a friend other than to get along and be able to have a whole buncha things in common, a bunch of things that are different so that we don't entirely bore one another and that the effort to communiate be mutual. Yes, I have other friends, although they are more like people that I know though. I can strike up a conversation with them and have some background history, we probably either worked together at a former job or they are parents of at least one of my kiddos. But really, those are people that I know, not real friends.

How many friends do you have? What makes them your friends vs people that you know? Heck, show me a link to an online friend test and maybe I'll double post today!

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Don't you just love some modern advances?!

They've come out with this cool new 'flotation swimwear' since I helped teach my older kids to swim, and it's one that I didn't think that I'd end up trying. I thought that if I got this flotation suit then I'd be copping out, taking the easy way and not putting in the right amount of effort. That Daisy will never actually learn to swim because she'll rely on the aides too much. That last one remains to be seen but I can tell you that in the two days since I bought her new suit she has been in three different pools already, never wants to get out! She loves to kick her little heart out and races across the pool to get a ball, noodle or whatever! She's already making a lot more effort and the best thing is that she's not going under for the most part! Every now and then she gets a mouthful of water, but usually has to make an effort to do that!

It's a one piece bathing suit that looks like so many others. There are three sections that get blown up and go in the front and back panel of the suit and as they get to be better swimmers you only blow up two or one. It zips on the sides and then there are some matching flower arm bands that are pretty cool too. Believe it or not there are two blow-up valves and one blows the whole thing up and you can roll them up the arm to get them on! The other only blows one 'panel' inside the arm band and allows for greater mobility. I'm not even sure if this photo shows the difference very well, but the one with the suit has the band blown 'all the way' and this photo you can see that it's not blown up under her arm. It still has enough air to keep her up, but not so much that she can't move her arms!

One of the miracles of the modern world! Tell me, have you used one of these? Would you? If you wouldn't then why not?

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