Shari
IsItFridayYet?
We had a GREAT weekend away. Its our one (and usually only) adults only trip we take every year. I worked my tail off to get ready on Thursday so we could leave as soon as husband got home from work, didn't get everything done, but enough that I didn't have to worry about getting too much more done either when we arrived or got back home.
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Back up... husband said 2 summers ago that we needed to pack the bearings on our camper. Its been on my list to do, but I haven't got to it - it always seems something that is truly broken comes up and has to be dealt with instead (that and I've actually taken time a couple times a week this summer to ride my horse with a friend). PLus, my truck needs rewired for trailer lights and brakes, my brother is going to help with this, but he and I haven't been able to coordinate schedules.
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So Thursday, I packed a bag for difficult child to spend the night with his teacher, wrote out everything she needed to know. Took him and the coon to school (show and tell), then came home. Washed all the laundry in the house, changed the sheets on the bed, ran the vacuum, packed all the clothes for husband and I for the trip, mailed some packages, went to the city for groceries and difficult child's medications, (locked keys in the car there), came home and packed the groceries in the camper, checked the tires, etc, left notes for my mom, who was staying here with difficult child, on chores, etc. Left a note for easy child 1 to do some of the chores, too. Packed lawn chairs, charcoal, put weekend feeders in the fish tank, checked livestock, and put all the horses in the big pasture so no one would have to hay or water. (husband has been doing hay for his folks in the evening the past several nights). Then easy child 1 got home from work. I was hooked up to the camper and couldn't get the brakes to work on the camper, so he and I spent an hour trying to get them fixed, knowing the whole truck needs to be rewired, just trying to get it to work for this trip. I filled the truck with diesel ($170), husband got home, showered, and we left. I drove, because husband tries to drive my truck like a gas engine (its a diesel - it will NOT accelerate fast regardless of how far to the floor you push the pedal...doing that just ***** fuel...)
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Had a great time on the trip. Went to come home yesterday, and NO lights worked, let alone brakes, and we were in the Ozark mountains. I drove and broke a tree limb off coming out of the campground. Stopped to check the camper for damage, and husband said we needed to pack those bearings when we got home. So while I checked the camper roof, he jacked up the camper to look at a wheel. We didn't HAVE any wheel bearings in one wheel. GONE. We wouldn't even have made it 50 miles on those mountains roads. I was so angry at him and myself....I could have spit nails (while I resealed the friggin' camper roof this spring because it was leaking, he tinkered up a little light to wire to the front of the camper - might be handy when we have to set up in the dark, he said, we wouldn't have to use a flashlight...). Found a parts store and luckily were able to replace the bearings, and 3 hours and a lot of grease and sweat later, was on our way home (note the stock trailer is sitting in the yard in the same condition). Again, I drove because the last time we went WITHOUT the camper, husband drove and used just as much fuel as I do WITH a 4000 pound camper hitched to the truck...and when you're talking about $170 worth of fuel, that's substantial.
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Got home and unpacked and unloaded. difficult child 1 was good last night. Went to pick up easy child 2, and her mom said she needed to clean her room before she came. Which was fine, but her mom's not working this summer, and easy child 2 had just spent 4 "extra" days with her mom (she was "supposed" to have been here this past weekend). So I went home and waited til easy child called, then went back and picked her up (trying to be to her mom the person I would like her mom to be back to me...)
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Check messages at home. A guy who we're cutting hay off of has left about a hundred messages thinking we're ignoring him. Last message says he's finding someone else to cut the hay. I tell husband. Its 5pm. He says he'll call the guy tomorrow. Why not tonight? Cause he just doesn't want to. I said "the guy is mad. He is finding someone else to do this, and WE NEED THAT HAY!" husband says that the guy isn't gonna dictate what he does, he'll call him tomorrow. So fine, I walk away, trying not to worry about it (if we lose this field of hay, we'll likely lose 3 others...and we NEED that hay - but then again, husband thought we could get by last winter on 20 bales - we fed 50)
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I unpack, fix dinner, buy a few groceries, get the kids picked up, check in with mom, who kept difficult child, check stock, unpack the camper, etc. husband helps easy child 1 with a trailer he's working on. easy child asks to use husband's welder, husband him-haws around, finally says ok, but charges easy child $20, so easy child goes to husband's parents' house to bring the welder home.
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Enter today. I am in a serious funk. difficult child had BT, so I have to miss 3 hours of work, and the lady I'm working on a project with, who has had all month to check a file, finally did it, and it turns out needing some minor modification. Nothing major, but still...this was supposed to be done by this month end. That won't happen now.
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I go to BT (see post in general). Just makes the funk a little funkier. difficult child gets home and is a loon. husband calls and is going to talk to the hayfield owner, says he'll be home in a few minutes. I try to appease kids
til he gets home, he's told them he'll take them fishing when he gets home, and I plan to work on the other wheel bearings on the camper. An hour passes, he doesn't show, so I call. He's at his mom's, working on their tractor. I just pack up and take the kids fishing myself. He gets home and I head to the house with difficult child, who's being a pain to easy child 2. Fix supper, everyone eats, I go to the ex-in-law's to pick up difficult child's medications, get home, and easy child tells me that when he went to get the welder last night, husband's mom read him the riot act about husband's dad having missing tools. Mind you, this woman has caught her grandson stealing from her shop, yet she continues to allow him to have a key to said shop, while myself and my kids are not allowed to have keys. The last time easy child was even out there was to FIX THEIR LAWNMOWER 3 months ago!!!! We go out there as little as possible because of this. Anyway, when I mentioned this to husband, he got mad at me for bringing it up, everyone got the riot act, so easy child 1 shoulnd't be offended. So, after supper, I went out to do chores, bring the ponies in from the back pasture (took an hour), and spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that easy child 2's mom is not working all summer, she has a $200k house and acreage that her mom and dad bought for her, and they're footing the bill for her to stay home this summer. Her mom and dad are worth about $3mil. They don't work. husband's parents have land probably worth $500k. They are retired with a lake home and 3 boats. And it is ME AND MY MOTHER who are looking at paying $8k for and juggling getting easy child 2 the tutoring she needs...I'm beginning to have a problem with this. PLus, my mom sees that husband needs to contribute more...says he has GOT to step up to the plate if we do this. So I think about all this and the funk gets worse. Then I come in to find husband in front of the tv. Dinner's all over the counter still, difficult child has fallen asleep in the chair with no pull-up, easy child is in bed without a shower, and lego's, that easy child was playing with when I went out, all over the living room floor. I clean up dinner, feed the dogs, pick up the toys, put stuff out for school tomorrow, and get on here to draft an email to the DevPed to ask for medications (again, see post in general). husband gets up and stomps out, is now outside working on the wiring on my truck. Just came thru a minute ago kicking the lego's in the living room...and made the funk even worse.
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And now here I am. Feeling absolutely defeated. I have a good job, but I take a $10k cut in pay to deal with difficult child. My vehicles are decent, but they are all old. I do all the mechanic work myself, or I couldn't afford to have what I do have (and I thank God daily for my friends who are real mechanics who I can call if I get stuck on anything I'm working on). My house is ancient - heck, I just got running water back in my kitchen (I've been bucketing water for 6 months...and my "fix" was to replumb the kitchen - which I did myself...) And now I am looking at paying another $8k with my mother's help, and more time out of work, to take care of easy child 2, while the rest of her family has nice homes, nice cars, and ignores her problems. I guess I'm feeling a little envious, at the same time I'm feeling angry at these people for ignoring their kid and treating me and my kids like dirt (or theives) while I am sitting her trying to figure out the logistics to pay for the help "their" kid so desperately needs. "Their" kid just needs some tutoring and they are too *&^%$ lazy to do that for her, and I would give my right leg for someone to give me a fix for "my" kid. I want to have something I don't have to fix, for once, and I don't know when that will ever happen. husband will inherit his parents' farm, but at the rate this is going, I'm not sure it will ever be anything that I will be a part of, let alone my kids. If easy child 1 has to pay to use husband's welder...well....I guess there probably won't be aby of that farm for me to leave to them. I guess maybe its just a giant pity party, I dunno.
***
Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks for listening. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
***
Back up... husband said 2 summers ago that we needed to pack the bearings on our camper. Its been on my list to do, but I haven't got to it - it always seems something that is truly broken comes up and has to be dealt with instead (that and I've actually taken time a couple times a week this summer to ride my horse with a friend). PLus, my truck needs rewired for trailer lights and brakes, my brother is going to help with this, but he and I haven't been able to coordinate schedules.
***
So Thursday, I packed a bag for difficult child to spend the night with his teacher, wrote out everything she needed to know. Took him and the coon to school (show and tell), then came home. Washed all the laundry in the house, changed the sheets on the bed, ran the vacuum, packed all the clothes for husband and I for the trip, mailed some packages, went to the city for groceries and difficult child's medications, (locked keys in the car there), came home and packed the groceries in the camper, checked the tires, etc, left notes for my mom, who was staying here with difficult child, on chores, etc. Left a note for easy child 1 to do some of the chores, too. Packed lawn chairs, charcoal, put weekend feeders in the fish tank, checked livestock, and put all the horses in the big pasture so no one would have to hay or water. (husband has been doing hay for his folks in the evening the past several nights). Then easy child 1 got home from work. I was hooked up to the camper and couldn't get the brakes to work on the camper, so he and I spent an hour trying to get them fixed, knowing the whole truck needs to be rewired, just trying to get it to work for this trip. I filled the truck with diesel ($170), husband got home, showered, and we left. I drove, because husband tries to drive my truck like a gas engine (its a diesel - it will NOT accelerate fast regardless of how far to the floor you push the pedal...doing that just ***** fuel...)
***
Had a great time on the trip. Went to come home yesterday, and NO lights worked, let alone brakes, and we were in the Ozark mountains. I drove and broke a tree limb off coming out of the campground. Stopped to check the camper for damage, and husband said we needed to pack those bearings when we got home. So while I checked the camper roof, he jacked up the camper to look at a wheel. We didn't HAVE any wheel bearings in one wheel. GONE. We wouldn't even have made it 50 miles on those mountains roads. I was so angry at him and myself....I could have spit nails (while I resealed the friggin' camper roof this spring because it was leaking, he tinkered up a little light to wire to the front of the camper - might be handy when we have to set up in the dark, he said, we wouldn't have to use a flashlight...). Found a parts store and luckily were able to replace the bearings, and 3 hours and a lot of grease and sweat later, was on our way home (note the stock trailer is sitting in the yard in the same condition). Again, I drove because the last time we went WITHOUT the camper, husband drove and used just as much fuel as I do WITH a 4000 pound camper hitched to the truck...and when you're talking about $170 worth of fuel, that's substantial.
***
Got home and unpacked and unloaded. difficult child 1 was good last night. Went to pick up easy child 2, and her mom said she needed to clean her room before she came. Which was fine, but her mom's not working this summer, and easy child 2 had just spent 4 "extra" days with her mom (she was "supposed" to have been here this past weekend). So I went home and waited til easy child called, then went back and picked her up (trying to be to her mom the person I would like her mom to be back to me...)
***
Check messages at home. A guy who we're cutting hay off of has left about a hundred messages thinking we're ignoring him. Last message says he's finding someone else to cut the hay. I tell husband. Its 5pm. He says he'll call the guy tomorrow. Why not tonight? Cause he just doesn't want to. I said "the guy is mad. He is finding someone else to do this, and WE NEED THAT HAY!" husband says that the guy isn't gonna dictate what he does, he'll call him tomorrow. So fine, I walk away, trying not to worry about it (if we lose this field of hay, we'll likely lose 3 others...and we NEED that hay - but then again, husband thought we could get by last winter on 20 bales - we fed 50)
***
I unpack, fix dinner, buy a few groceries, get the kids picked up, check in with mom, who kept difficult child, check stock, unpack the camper, etc. husband helps easy child 1 with a trailer he's working on. easy child asks to use husband's welder, husband him-haws around, finally says ok, but charges easy child $20, so easy child goes to husband's parents' house to bring the welder home.
***
Enter today. I am in a serious funk. difficult child had BT, so I have to miss 3 hours of work, and the lady I'm working on a project with, who has had all month to check a file, finally did it, and it turns out needing some minor modification. Nothing major, but still...this was supposed to be done by this month end. That won't happen now.
***
I go to BT (see post in general). Just makes the funk a little funkier. difficult child gets home and is a loon. husband calls and is going to talk to the hayfield owner, says he'll be home in a few minutes. I try to appease kids
til he gets home, he's told them he'll take them fishing when he gets home, and I plan to work on the other wheel bearings on the camper. An hour passes, he doesn't show, so I call. He's at his mom's, working on their tractor. I just pack up and take the kids fishing myself. He gets home and I head to the house with difficult child, who's being a pain to easy child 2. Fix supper, everyone eats, I go to the ex-in-law's to pick up difficult child's medications, get home, and easy child tells me that when he went to get the welder last night, husband's mom read him the riot act about husband's dad having missing tools. Mind you, this woman has caught her grandson stealing from her shop, yet she continues to allow him to have a key to said shop, while myself and my kids are not allowed to have keys. The last time easy child was even out there was to FIX THEIR LAWNMOWER 3 months ago!!!! We go out there as little as possible because of this. Anyway, when I mentioned this to husband, he got mad at me for bringing it up, everyone got the riot act, so easy child 1 shoulnd't be offended. So, after supper, I went out to do chores, bring the ponies in from the back pasture (took an hour), and spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that easy child 2's mom is not working all summer, she has a $200k house and acreage that her mom and dad bought for her, and they're footing the bill for her to stay home this summer. Her mom and dad are worth about $3mil. They don't work. husband's parents have land probably worth $500k. They are retired with a lake home and 3 boats. And it is ME AND MY MOTHER who are looking at paying $8k for and juggling getting easy child 2 the tutoring she needs...I'm beginning to have a problem with this. PLus, my mom sees that husband needs to contribute more...says he has GOT to step up to the plate if we do this. So I think about all this and the funk gets worse. Then I come in to find husband in front of the tv. Dinner's all over the counter still, difficult child has fallen asleep in the chair with no pull-up, easy child is in bed without a shower, and lego's, that easy child was playing with when I went out, all over the living room floor. I clean up dinner, feed the dogs, pick up the toys, put stuff out for school tomorrow, and get on here to draft an email to the DevPed to ask for medications (again, see post in general). husband gets up and stomps out, is now outside working on the wiring on my truck. Just came thru a minute ago kicking the lego's in the living room...and made the funk even worse.
***
And now here I am. Feeling absolutely defeated. I have a good job, but I take a $10k cut in pay to deal with difficult child. My vehicles are decent, but they are all old. I do all the mechanic work myself, or I couldn't afford to have what I do have (and I thank God daily for my friends who are real mechanics who I can call if I get stuck on anything I'm working on). My house is ancient - heck, I just got running water back in my kitchen (I've been bucketing water for 6 months...and my "fix" was to replumb the kitchen - which I did myself...) And now I am looking at paying another $8k with my mother's help, and more time out of work, to take care of easy child 2, while the rest of her family has nice homes, nice cars, and ignores her problems. I guess I'm feeling a little envious, at the same time I'm feeling angry at these people for ignoring their kid and treating me and my kids like dirt (or theives) while I am sitting her trying to figure out the logistics to pay for the help "their" kid so desperately needs. "Their" kid just needs some tutoring and they are too *&^%$ lazy to do that for her, and I would give my right leg for someone to give me a fix for "my" kid. I want to have something I don't have to fix, for once, and I don't know when that will ever happen. husband will inherit his parents' farm, but at the rate this is going, I'm not sure it will ever be anything that I will be a part of, let alone my kids. If easy child 1 has to pay to use husband's welder...well....I guess there probably won't be aby of that farm for me to leave to them. I guess maybe its just a giant pity party, I dunno.
***
Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks for listening. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
