Thursday, April 28, 2011

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?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

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 

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Been away awhile

I know I have been away awhile, but I haven't forgotten. Just been in a weird rut lately. I have a ton of projects in the works to show all of you, but no pictures as of yet. I will get around to it here as soon as I can. I did catch some cute photos this past weekend and here they are.

Everyone usually falls asleep long before I do and it seems like they just pass out like flies around me. I just couldn't resist they were so cute!                                                                                                                 







Monday, March 21, 2011

Katey's dress

Here are some pics of Katey and her new dress. These pictures were taken by my oldest daughter Holly.









   





Dress was made from a tutorial found here. http://www.gingerhendrix.com/wiener_dog_tricks/patternless-baby-dress-tutorial.html

Lost in my own world

So I've been a little lost in my own world for a couple of days. Remember I warned you in the beginning that I wouldn't promise to write every day or even every week I get side tracked by life and projects. Like I stayed up ALL night last night a sewed Katey a new dress. No pics yet, but will try and get some when she comes home from school. She loves when I make her things. First thing out of her mouth this morning, Did you finish my dress. Yup, sure did and a matching hair flower too. I have also been working on a secret jewelry project. Can't tell you about it yet. I have also been crocheting a baby cocoon. Kinda like a blanket that is already wrapped. I  think you have figured out that I have a problem staying on task. I like to start lots of things. I think it is because I get these ideas for items and I just run with them. I mean I had no intention on making Katey a dress last night. I was online and looking for something else and this tutorial popped up for an easy dress. I just HAD to make one for Katey. So............ I did. That is how it happens. I really need to finish a few of the other items I have already going and that is for sure on my list of things to get done.
Well, on the life note, we lost a bunch of stuff in a house flood. Wanna hear the Reichard curse strikes again funniness of it all, the stuff wasn't even in our house. See a few months ago we were suppose to move. We got involved with the program that was intended to help people get back on their feet. Goodness knows we have needed that since my accident, anyway one of the things they do is pay your rent for a year. Since our house is like falling down around my head we thought this was a GREAT idea. We began to look for a place to move. Sounds simple, right? NOT! They give you income guidelines and to us they seemed big, but then again we have been living in the same mobile home for 15 years. We had no idea how much it would cost to rent a house. We looked and looked and looked. We spent every spare minute to searching the newspaper, the internet, driving around and looking at houses. We either found ones we LOVED and couldn't afford or ones we hated and would never work for us. I really wanted either a one story house, or one with a potty downstairs because of my bad leg. I was afraid I would have one of my bad leg days and not be able to get up the stairs and where would I potty, or I would have a bout of bad depression and decide that I just couldn't take the risk and would stay in bed and not get out. The other problem was finding someone who would let us have the "boys" (dogs). There was no way I was giving them up. Finally after 2 months of long, hard looking we settled on a place. Not ideal. It was a second floor apartment, but I could have the boys.That was very important to me. It had 3 huge bedrooms, a nice living room , a small kitchen, but we could work around that. The guy was very, very nice and said I could put the boys out front to potty, so I didn't have to walk down the outside stairs. We told the guy we would take it and we were so excited to be able to have our search over and finally move. This all happened on a Friday. That Saturday we received a notice that we were not eligible for the program. You see in order to be part of the program we had to meet certain guidelines.
1. Be homeless or about to be homeless.
This was going to happen because C&Y told us to allow our mobile home park to evict us. We later had to pay almost $3,000 out of our income tax to be able to stay since we had no where to go. Came right down to the day before they were going to lock us out. C&Y are supposedly here to help us because our house is in such bad shape, but if anything they have made things worse. $1,100 of that money was in late charges and court costs we would have never gotten if we had paid the rent.
2. Be eligible for section 8 (HUD) housing.
Filled out the application 2 months prior to finding the apartment.
3. both have jobs or enroll in program to help us find jobs.
In Bill's case he is working and they  couldn't hope to find him a higher paying job. For me they were going to have me evaluated by OVR. Plus I had already filled for Social Security, again.
4. Be enrolled in a program to improve our credit.
We were happy to do that since we have so much debt from my accident.
All of these things had to be met to be in the program, if just one thing fell out of place then we would not be eligible. Well, after more than 2 months we were sent a letter stating we were not eligible to receive section 8 housing. You see when I was 18 and pregnant with my now 19 year old boy we lived in low income housing. We lived there about 2 years give or take a few months. They did inspections and we failed one of them. I am a terrible house keeper. I admit it. I can always find something better to do than clean. I also have a very bad habit of dragging things out to look for something and then getting tired and not putting everything i dug out away right away. That was one of those times. I had taken everything out of our little storage area under the stairs and dug through everything and then it got late and I figured I could put it away later. Well little did I know the following day they came to inspect and the house was a mess. We got evicted. That would be about 18 years ago. Because of a mistake I made when I was 18or 19 we are black balled from every federally run program that has to do with housing. Now, if we would have run out without paying the rent we could have paid the back rent and everything would have been fine. The fact that I am a messy housekeeper obviously is unforgivable.  So no move. We had packed up our entire home when we first started looking 2 months previous. We each had 4 sets of clothes, were eating off of paper plates and plastic silver ware and put all of our possessions in storage. Some was in our personal little shed, some in a rental shed we share with my parents and the new(really used, but new to us) furniture for the move and the rest of our items were stored in the heated basement of Bill's Mom's house. We put sensitive items down there. Video games, the kids' Wii my precious sewing machine my parents gave to me, pictures, lots of them, books, VCR tapes, DVDs, the new beds and mattresses, a TV and many other items. Well, here is where the curse part comes in, a pipe in the ceiling/floor or his Mom's house burst right over our stuff. I mean our stuff was in one little part of the basement and there are pipes all over down there and one broke, right over our stuff. Come on. Well, anyone who knows us knows this is how things work for us. So we went and scoured through the stuff and brought home what we thought we could save and bagged the rest up for garbage. My sewing machine, after 3 days of drying and lots of oiling seems to have survived. The kids' Wii we still aren't sure about. It turns on, but the remotes don't seem to be working. The pictures, lost some, many others are spread through the house drying. My son's Nintendo 64 we are still unsure about. The unit turns on, but again the remotes don't seem to be working. Well, nothing to do, but move onward and upward. Oh, forgot the good part, all those clothes, the ones we didn't keep at the house, the ones we put in storage so I would have them ready to go when we move, yup you guessed it, in the basement. 14 bags of clothes. My washer and dryer has been running nonstop for 3 days now and I am not sure I have even made a dent. LOL! Well, I wanted to sort through them again, so now is the time. What I don't want I will donate. So this is what I have been up to and why I haven't written in awhile. I will try and get pics of Katey in her new dress. But, today is Girl scouts and tomorrow Boy scouts. 2 more busy days. Hope to see you all soon!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Can't believe what time it is!

Wow! Have you ever started working on something and then look at your watch and realize HOURS have gone by without you even noticing it? Well, it happened to me tonight. I always was and probably always will be a late owl. I love the quietness and knowing my family is all snug and tucked into bed. It is like I am watching over them as they sleep just in case there really are monster that come out in the middle of the night. Well, I was up and working on  my computer as usual and I got this bright idea to tweak my blogs a little. I just want them to look nice and be easy for people to view, move around in and to find the other places I am at. You know, my Facebook page, my other blog. My Mom doesn't get this whole blogging thing. She asked me the other day why would you want someone reading your diary? I tried explaining it to her, but I think after some soul searching I have found out MY reason why....... to know I am not alone. I suffer from depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and both of those things tend to make you draw into yourself. This is one way for me to be out in the open without having to worry about not wanting to leave my house. Anyway, I got off track, see how that happens? LOL So I am tweaking my blogs and my alarm on my phone goes off. It is 4am and time for my hubby to get up for work. He is the polar opposite of me. He like getting up early for work. Don't ask me why. He is just weird. Anyway, I am too involved in what I am doing and covered with yarn, scissors, a computer and a cat, also just to dang lazy, to get up and shut the phone off. It rings several more times. Finally I wonder to myself, why hasn't he gotten up? I go back and yup, still sound asleep. I look at his alarm clock, and I bet a bunch of you already know what I am going to say, it is an hour slow. The computer changed itself, the phones changed themselves, but those dang, lazy alarm clocks never change themselves.I wake him up and he runs around getting dressed so he can leave. He gives me a kiss and out the door he goes, after asking me, Aren't you EVER going to bed? I assure him I will go, in a minute. Aren't those famous last words. So here I sit at 6:11 am, not having gone to bed yet. I will wait now and get the kids up in a little while to get ready for school and then I will take the dogs and we will sleep. While everyone else is starting their day, I will end mine. When everyone else is winding down, I am just getting going. My strange sleeping habits have bothered my Mother for years. I always told her, someone had to work the night shift. Some of us are just born for it. I can stay up for a long time. A lot longer than most. I think it came from all the years I spent working double shifts when I was a nurse's aide. I just heard my first bird singing. Sun will be up in a little while. Guess I will finish up here and watch a TV show on Netflix before I have to get the kiddos up. Good night all, or good morning, which ever you prefer. :)