Getting jumped, but not blown, and eventually getting a wet butt

So my bestie friend and I are always coming up with crazy  great ideas of things to keep us and the kids busy. She had the off the wall  great idea that we should all go tubing down the creek.

 By all, I mean her, her husband and her 2 kids ages 3 and 9 and me, my husband and our 3 kids, ages 19, 13, and 8 and we usually have my sons girlfriend and his best friend and his girlfriend with us so that is a total of  a dozen of us. My bestie called around until she found tractor inner tubes, which wasn't as easy as you think considering we live in rural Pa., but with a little persistence she found some for FREE!!!

 So my husband, my bestie and I loaded up into her car and went to retrieve the tubes. We found a large tractor trailer full of huge tires and tubes. He started to dig and move things. It was over 100 degrees outside and he was sweating like crazy. We made the decision to run home and grab our son and his friend. They climbed into the trailer and in no time were completely as black as midnight from the grease.

 We finally managed to wrestle 12 tubes from the trailer and we all felt victory. we began loading them into my bestie's jeep and realized there were no valve cores in any of them. So no tubing that day because everything was closed and there was no place to buy any. The reason the guy had said we could have the tubes for free was because we would have to go back to him to buy the cores. LOL! So almost $30 later we had cores. My husband put them in and began to blow up the tubes. My husband's air compressor kept kicking off every 2 minutes but he managed to get them blown up. All but 3 leaked. UGHHHH!!!! So off to Walmart to buy patches. He patched the tubes and blew them all up again to make sure they were not leaking. Success!!!!! So we planned on the spur of the moment decided to try our hand at this tubing thing. We packed all of the deflated tubes into the vehicles and 2 little kids and my son and his girlfriend and off we went. We got to the creek and started to use a car pump to inflate the tubes. It took half an hour to inflate one and we needed 6. UGHHHH!!! So once again we used our brilliant thinking caps to figure out what we could do. We decided to go to sheetz and use the machine to blow up the biggest of the tubes. We loaded them into the car and my bestie and me went to sheetz. Once we got there we waited in line for the air pump. The guy in front of us was taking forever. We finally got up to the pump and we raised the air pressure as high as it would go and the tube still wasn't filling. So I checked and there was no air coming out. The darn thing was broken and we couldn't get the tubes blown up.

 By now we had been trying for hours to go tubing and it was almost dark. We decided to just forget it. I tried texting my son's girlfriend's phone and got a wrong number. UGHHH!!!! We returned to the creek and my husband had 3 of the tubes blown up and they were waiting for us. By now it was dark. We decided to let the kids just paddle around in the creek. My son and his girlfriend took the kids into the creek. It was dark so we pulled the vehicles up and shined the lights on the creek. Now don't worry the creek is not deep. The spot we were at was not past my son's knees. My husband left our Jeep running, but my bestie turned hers off and left her lights on. Now I know that by now many of you who know me know what I am going to say. You are all right, she went to turn her Jeep on and we heard that famous, click, click, click. Luckily my husband had jumper cables in our Jeep so he jumped us. Home we went. We didn't get the tubes blown up, but we did get the Jeep jumped. The day was not a total loss. The kids did get to paddle around. We also learned a very valuable lesson, blow the tubes up before we leave! We had our light bulb moment. So a few days later we decided to try again. This time it was my bestie and her 2 kiddos and my husband and I and our son and his friend. We blew up the tubes and jammed them into every available opening and on the roof. We used lots of rope and tied everything down. We got to the creek and unloaded everything. We drove one vehicle to the ending point and on the way there I see something fly past my window. My bestie had left her brand new pack of cigs on the hood and it had gone flying past the window. So on the way back from dropping the vehicle off we had a scavenger hunt for cigs. My husband walked along the road and we finally found them. Whewww!!!!! We put the tubes into the water and everyone climbed on. We had left all of the rope in the other vehicle so had to resort to a bungee strap to tie the littlest one to his mom.  As many of my friends and readers know I was hit by a truck and have a bad knee so sometimes things like this are a challenge for me, but i was determined after all we had been through to get my butt wet. My husband rolled my tube down to the creek and then came back up the hill to help me walk down. I got to the creek and went to sit in my tube and fell right through the hole and landed plop right in the creek. I wasn't hurt, but I finally had gotten my butt wet. So we decided that the best way to handle it was for me to sit on one side and dangle my legs in the center. It worked. We leisurely floated down the creek, my butt sometimes scrapping on the rocks. I even got stuck on a rock and my hubby, who can't swim had to come to my rescue. We had so much fun. When it came time to get out of the creek we almost floated by our landing. Our son's had to swim out and drag us in. Everyone managed to get up the bank and we deflated the tubes, loaded them up and started on our way home. My husband and I had taken the roof off of Jeep so we could squeeze the tubes in. We were soaking wet and the sun was now down. We froze all the way home.

Once home I put on a sweat shirt and pulled the blanket of me and stayed covered up all night  and it took forever to get warm. We are thinking about doing this again this weekend. Because we are crazy so full of adventure!

Been a long time

It has been a very long time since I have posted anything. I no longer have Internet at my home and have to borrow from my neighbor and it is a very unreliable signal. I have to have my computer way up on a few boxes to get a signal and it makes it almost impossible to type anything so I end up on Facebook using just my external mouse or watching Netflix. Right now I am at my Mom's using her Internet so i decided to get everyone up to date. Things have been very tough for us lately with my husband losing his job. He went out to look for a new one right away, but things are very tough around here. We have lost many factories and being in a rural area and not having  the blocks and blocks of fast food restaurants and such factory work is really all there is. We ended up having to file for welfare cash assistance. We are a family of 5 and receive only $589 a month. Crazy! My husband was informed that he would have to go on job search for 30 hours a week and he was fine with that. He wanted a job right away. He started to go and they informed him he would be taking GED classes for 6 months before they would let him look for a job. He informed them that we could not live for 6 months on the amount of money they were providing us with. He continued to look on his own. He then found out that on Fridays they didn't go to class or look for work, but watched rented movies. Yup, that is where are tax dollars go. He also felt very uncomfortable with the people he was with. They were drug dealers and criminals. The great news is that he found a new job which he start today. It is kinda far to drive, but he is so happy to be working again.
On another good note our son graduated from both Sun Vo-Tech school and High School. He suffers from a learning disability and he did very good. There were 178 graduating students and he was 101. Not bad. we had a party for him and our youngest daughters 8th birthday. I will post pictures later. Things seem to be looking up. It will take us awhile to get back on our feet, but our son will also be starting work in a week and will be able to help with some bills, so we will survive.

*sigh* tired

I am so very tired tonight. DH and I have spent the last 2 days being very busy. Aside from our normal run the kids here, pick them up there, make them do their chores, cook supper, life kinda stuff we have been running during the day to try and find DH a job. So crazy. Why is it so hard? The bad thing is that my husband's work record is not the best. He has had a lot of jobs and has been fired from a few. In our younger years he would get bored and call off a lot, leave early, be late, just didn't really care. He always seemed to have a hard time settling in. I understood it better later, after we had 3 kids, all who have ADD, all who have some kind of learning disability and the Neuro Dr. told me that when yo have 3 kids with ADD, it comes from somewhere. I don't have it. I always did well in school and I love to read, do it almost every night. Things come pretty easy to me. Neither my DH or I graduated from high school, but I later went on to get my GED, just because. My DH has tried prob 10 times to pass that test and has failed 10 times, even after weeks and sometimes months worth of classes. He just can't do it.The first time they tested him they told him that he read on a 5th grade level. He quit school in the 10th grade. He had gone to a school run by his church and they worked in work books at their own pace and they were just moved to the next grade automatically. He couldn't spell and still can't very well, but his reading has greatly improved. They told him just to read. Read whatever yo want, a car magazine a newspaper, just read and you will get better at it. The last time he took the test he read at almost 12th grade. After my accident, and after he was done care giving for me, he went back to work. Took him awhile to find a job because he had a year gap in employment. He found a seasonal job and then the job he was let go from. He was happy there. He liked the company and he didn't mind the work. He had matured a lot. I think the accident did that for him. He always relied on me to be the bread winner, and that was OK. I LOVED my job and didn't mind working long hours and double shifts. He was great with the kids, so he stayed home and raised them and I worked. After the accident and me being told I couldn't work he found a job and took pride in the fact that he was supporting us. He never complained. he once told me he liked the fact that he knew I wold be at home waiting for him when he came back. When I worked I was gone a lot working. Things were tough for us. I won't lie, money always was and probably always will be an issue for us. However we are both firm believers that money is not happiness. As long as our basics were met we were happy. We love our kids and they are all healthy, we love each other and had been through some very hard times together, but we were happy. Things started to slip though. When you have no savings and live pay check to pay check the way we do, one bad thing can cause an avalanche. That is what happened to us. It starts slow, very slow, just a trickle really. We discovered we had a bad roof. We had no money to get it fixed, so we tried patching it. Our only car broke down. We had no money to get it fixed so we begged other people to get him to work. The plumbing in the house is bad and every time you turn around DH was trying to repair another leaking pipe. We got behind on our bills. Now when I say bills, I don't mean credit card bills, or expensive cell phones are anything like that. I mean the basics, and by the basics I don't mean satellite TV, or the Internet, or long distance phone. I mean rent, electric, and basic telephone and a cheap car payment. That is it, all we had, no TV, none, we had a prepaid cell, no money, no phone, no Internet did without it and soon will be doing without it again, and we only had 1 car. People would say, cut back. On what, breathing? We saved money to get the car fixed, but we needed more money, so we had to take out the car loan. The patched roof got worse, so we patched it again, and so on and so on............................... We just never seemed to be able to get ahead. Just couldn't get away fast enough, something was and is always nipping at our heels, screaming for us to pay attention to it. I wonder sometimes if it isn't punishment? I married young, had a baby young and was lucky enough to marry the love of my life. maybe if you get lucky enough to find "the one" right away then you get punished for it. Maybe you are allowed only so much happiness. You get either money or fame or great looks, or a huge talent, like an artist or musician or you get the love of your life, your perfect other half and because you got the one great thing, the rest suffers. I know life is full of ups and downs, but I just really wish my up would get here. *sigh* I know I complain way too much. I bet everyone must think I am a sour, sad person. Not really true, maybe I only feel the need to write when I am sour and sad. Think I will stop the pity party train and be happy in the now and worry about the tomorrow, tomorrow. Live one day at a time is the only way I can cope right now. I am trying to look at the good things that are in the future. Someone once told me that if you and your spouse quit school the chances are your kids won't finish either. That has always weighed on me. Well, I am proud to announce that in about a month my DS will graduate from high school. I could not be happier and I could not be more proud of him. One down, 2 to go. They will finish even if I have to drive them and sit in class with them, they will finish. I refuse to let my mistakes be revisited on my children.

Scared

Finally heard from the unemployment office about the decision to give Bill unemployment. He was denied. When I read that letter I felt like crying, throwing up, screaming, but mostly I just wanted to float away. I want to go to a place where I don't have to deal with any of this. I am so scared. What are we going to do? I mean, it isn't like we were in the best situation to begin with. We have gone from having some money coming in every month to none, none! How do you live without money? We had a few hundred dollars left from our income tax, but we had to use most of it to pay an outstanding electric bill. The roof leaks so bad that I am afraid one of these days it will just fall in or a strong wind will come and it will just tear right off. We once again are behind on our rent. We didn't pay last months and this months is past due. We are 3 months behind on our vehicle payment. Without a car how can he find a job, how can I see all of these Dr.'s I am suppose to see. I am just so tired of dealing with all of it. It always seems like we get out of one mess only to find ourselves in another. I sit here wondering why I wasted so much energy and money 4 months ago to keep us from being evicted when we will once again face the same thing. Why I paid almost $2,000 to keep our lights on last month, only to get them shut off now that we can't pay. Why keep fighting? Why?! I just want to curl up into a ball and give up. wouldn't that be so much easier? I think again about what my life would be like right now if I had never been hurt. I think about whether I could try and find a job. Who would take me? I am a mess. Who would be willing to work around all of my problems? If the job exists I would do it. I feel like this is all my fault. My guilt overwhelms me. I am surely riding the pity train. I wish I had a magic pill that would take me back to that fateful day. The day it all changed. How I wish I could make things different. I am so scared and don't know what to do or how to fix it. I can only see things getting worse from here. It is like I am walking down a long tunnel and there is no light at the other end. I have always tried to be greatful for what  have. When DH worked I was glad for his job even though it wasn't much. As long as most of the bill were paid I could be happy in the knowledge that somehow things would work out. This cloud has no silver lining. It is cold, wet and very dark here and I don't see any way out.

Had a Dr.'s appt today.

I went and saw my Dr today and had several things I wanted to talk about. One of them was this weird mole I have on my face. It showed up a few months ago and has gotten bigger. She looked at it and doesn't think it looks bad, but wants me to see a dermatologist. I'm not worried, just want to be careful. I also wanted to talk about my knee and back pain, which has increased again. It seems to around this time of the year. I think it may be because of the change in the weather and the fact that when it starts to get nice I want to be out more and am walking around more. I especially like to yard sale, but my pain keeps me from being able to do a lot of it. She wants me to try a new medicine, it is an anti inflammatory, because I asked her for no narcotics. She also wants me to go to a pain clinic and try injections in my back. I am a little unsure about this, but the pain in my back is sometimes unbearable. She also wants me to try taking physical therapy, just to see if they can help lessen the pain. I will try anything at this point. She read my last MRI and the tried to explain to me that this is a life time long chronic condition. I think maybe she thought I wasn't aware of this. I am, and have accepted it, but really want to try and lessen my pain so I can try and enjoy my life a little more. One other thing I am looking in to is getting the lap band procedure done to help me with my weight. I have always been heavy and accepted that I would never be a super model and that was fine. My husband loves me just as I am and that was all I needed. The reason I am looking into it now is because less weight means less strain on my joints. That all equals decreased pain. I am very unsure about it. My sister has had gastric by pass and has had a rough time of it. I will be seeing and talking to someone about this and then make an informed decision. I also need to find a psychologist that will accept the Access card so I can begin to deal with my PTSD. I am no longer taking the anti-depressants because they just didn't seem to help. The sunshine seems to do much more for me.  Hope everyone has a great weekend and that it is sunny! LOL

What am I, made of money?

I know many people have felt this way. It just seems that you need money the most when you have the least amount of it, or you are trying to stretch what little you have. My DH has recently lost his job and has not received his first unemployment check yet or even for that matter his paperwork saying he will be getting unemployment. You see he was fired because he got sick. I think I blogged about this in an earlier post. Well, anyway the 2 oldest kids come to us today and start reminding us about all the money they need by the end of the week. The oldest our DS will be getting a job cleaning the schools for the summer after he graduates. He needs 2 $10 money orders so they can run the back ground checks on him. He also needed last week $40 for his prom tickets and we still have to pay $100 for his tux. Our oldest DD needs $13 to go on a filed trip. They also both informed me that they need packed lunches. I know this seems trivial, but they both get free lunch at school and I don't generally keep a lot of that kind of stuff laying around so I will have to go and buy stuff for them to eat. What made me so upset about all of this is our DS, who is 19 is always lately not following the house rules. You see he got this new girlfriend and it really is the first one he has been totally gaga over. He stays out past curfew and comes and goes as he please without telling us. I hate that. Ok, so I am over protective and I know many will say, hey, he is 19 after all. Well, he is, but he isn't. He's more like 14, when it comes to some things. He is in a special class at school and he has ADD and a learning disability. He is a good kid, just not thinking things through right now. I got off track a little, the point is when i call him on these things he tells me, I am a grown up! Yeah, right, ok. So after he informed me of this money I said, hey where is that $5 you got for Easter? He quietly says, spent it. On what, I say? On sodas. ON SODAS! ( I thought this, but said this) On sodas? You have soda here, at the house. Yeah, I know. Let me explain that he bought the sodas at the campground about a half mile from our house. He left our house and rode his bike there, just to spend $5 on sodas. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, I got mad. I asked him who was suppose to pay the $20 HE needed for the back ground check for HIS job. He just looks at me. I hate when he does that. I said, it isn't my job, or your dad's. It is YOUR job. You should have saved that $5 and used it to put towards this money you knew you had to have. Well, he says, I just thought you would pay for it. I then threw back at him, but you are a GROWN UP, and grown ups pay their own way. I asked him what he would do if we didn't pay it, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, then I won't work. I thought to myself, like hell! The I asked him if I should make him chose between his tux and the job, he just looked at me and then shrugged his shoulders, UGHHHHHH!!!!! Where did I go wrong? I mean it isn't like my kids have gotten everything they have wanted. The exact opposite, so where did he get this attitude that he deserves for us to pay for everything. I felt bad then because DD was sitting on the couch counting her change and offered to give it to us towards her school trip. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! She has her moments. LOL I explained to her that her and DS are different. He is suppose to be a grown up and learn to handle things and start to pay his own way in life and she is 13 and still dependant upon us.
This all brings me to another problem. do we make him pay to live here after he graduates. I want to say yes, so he learns responsibility and about bills. I think when I say this to others they think I am horrible. I by no means want to take his entire pay. I also don't want to see a whole paycheck spent on SODA! When I was a kid, around 15 and worked, my Mom sorta stopped buying me clothes and stopped paying for my haircuts and I used my own money for going with friends and the such. I moved out when I was 17 and married so after that I was on my own. I don't know how it would have worked if I had stayed, but I assume she would have made me pay. What do you think?

Where have I been

Well first of all this month is Autism awareness so I will be writing in blue in honor of all of them, but especially my nephew Quinlan. We all love you Quin and miss you!
Well, I have been gone for quite awhile. I have meant to blog, have thought about it, but just somehow didn't get around to it. I wondered if people really care about what goes on in my life. Plus it seems that I only write about bad stuff. I don't mean to, it just happens. Well, I have a lot to write about and yes some will be bad.
Let me start by saying that I am very glad spring is on the way. I have had enough of winter. I hate the cold and I hate the snow. With my bad leg the snow and ice make it hard for me to get around and I end up in the house a lot. This is a bad thing because I keep myself isolated enough as is. I think it must be part of my depression and PTSD. I tend to stay home and don't like to go out. I do have a few places I like to go. I love to go for lunch with my husband and my friends and I love to go to thrift stores. I am happy that it will soon be yard sale weather. I love to yard sale, but it is made difficult by  my inability to walk very far or for too long. So I have modified my yard sale technique by driving to the sales instead of doing a lot of walking. my husband is the best in that if we go to a sale we can't drive around to he will push me in a my wheelchair. He is a doll and has been so wonderful through everything. I hate this spring though too. It has been way too rainy for my taste. I understand we need rain for the new flowers and new leaves and the green, green grass, but the mud, and the constant cloudy days, just too depressing. I want sun! I am dying to sit outside and feel the warmth on my face. To put shorts on and feel the sun shining on skin too long covered to keep warm. I want to wiggle my toes in the green, green grass and I want to watch my husband and kids plant my garden and watch things get ripe and eat them. LOL I am ready for picnic and rides in our Jeep with the top off. I am ready for summer! I am also tired of this damn leaky roof. It has gotten to the point that when it rains our power keeps going out. I know the water must be getting to the electrical, we just don't know what to do about it. My husband has been constantly working on the many problems this house seems to constantly have. It seems like you fix one thing and something else breaks. we replaced our water heater and now he has to replace the heating elements because they have burned out already. Our wonderful DS was trying to be helpful and get rid of a pot of soup by flushing it down the toilet and accidentally flushed a large bone and it lodged in the toilet and they can't get it out so we had to replace it. Now that potty doesn't want to work right either. I try to chastise myself and say you have a roof over your head and so many don't. Stop feeling sorry for your self  and just suck it up, do the best you can and live life to the fullest.  I swear I try, I try every day. I convince myself that everything is fine, that I should be glad and happy for what I have. I am happy. I have 3 great and healthy kids. I have a husband who loves me and dotes on me and would do anything for me. Who needs heat or a non-leaky roof or a potty that works of a stove that has all it's burners or a beautiful, perfect house. I have a perfect family and that is what matters. Then something bad will happen to get me down again. Bill got sick. Had a virus. Got it from the kiddos. He was coughing and not sleeping. He went to the Dr.'s and they gave him a script for cough medicine. Told him not to drive while taking it and to stay home for a few days and rest. well, he didn't like it, but knew it was for the best and was worried about not working and not getting paid. I told him we would be ok. He took 4 days off. Called his employer and explained all of this, to the lovely answering machine you get to talk to. Told them if they had any questions to call him. He went into work on Friday and picked up his check. Took the weekend off as usual and went back to work on Monday at 5:30 am. They didn't even let him past the guard shack. they stripped him of his time card and told him he was fired. He asked why and they told him they didn't know. They called on of the supervisors and he told Bill that all he knows is that he was told Bill missed too many days, Bill said I called and handed in a Dr.'s excuse. He said call in later and talk with someone else. Well, he has spent all last week calling and never got a call back. He went there and was told they were gone for the day. So unprofessional! He will go tomorrow and wait there until someone speaks to him. He deserves after 3 and half years a reasonable explanation. So a bad situation has gotten even worse. Since he is the only one that made any money we have no idea what will happen now. I have filed for social Security, been denied, appealed, been denied, filed and been denied and am now awaiting yet another court hearing. I have been told by many that you have to file about 3 times before you get approved. it takes about a year and a half each time you file. I have been waiting about 3 years so far. I will prob have to wait about another 2 before I finally get approved. I had a lawyer the first time, and will get one this time as well. I am still looking for one.
On some good notes our DS will graduate from high school in a few weeks. I am so excited. We ordered his tuxedo for the Sr. prom and he has a new girlfriend, (that he really, really loves) that he will be taking. We are hoping to have a little get together to celebrate his graduation, not sure when or where, but I want to do something nice for him. I have worked on a few projects, but seem to have trouble finishing anything. I have 2 projects for my Mom that I need to get done and one for my brother and sister in law that I did finish. Here is a picture of that.

Not great pictures, but the best I could get at the time. I have been working on 2 projects for my Mom that I should have had done awhile ago. I will motivate my self to get them done. I do have a few other things i finished for my daughter's girl scout egg hunt. some cute little bunny barrettes. Here are a few pictures of those.

These were fun to make! I need to make a few more. These will be different though. maybe if the sun stays out today and I feel a little better I will try and work on some. I want to make some of these bunny ones for my niece's for Easter and I am running out of time. I also want to make 4 matching dresses for my girls and my nieces. I have some really pretty fabric I bought at a thrift store and I am pretty sure I will have enough for 4 dresses. well, really gotta go, next time I promise I will have more to show and will try and tell a funny story. I have a million, or so I am told! LOL