Hanging In Here...

I've written posts, mainly about my grandmother... Since it seems this might take a legal route, I'm kind of hesitant to post them.  I've been going back and forth. There's nothing wrong in them. In fact they would probably be great documentation. I just worry if those "who are out to get her" stumble here and find out our next move and try to stop us.  Sheesh, who needs enemies when you have family like this?  Ya know?

I have a lot of catching up to do around this little part of my internet, many new chapters happening in our lives right now.  So many changes since the last time I posted.

GOOD CHANGES!

Thank God, I am finally on the right track and seeing the rewards of it.  All these years that people have told me that I would be rewarded for my deeds, I didn't want any stupid reward.  I didn't realize what reward meant.  I guess I thought it was something grand, I didn't realize it was the simple things in life.  Crazy me.

So for now, I have some homeschool stuff to ready for the week so this will be short. Thank you, my readers, for your patience.  I'm so excited knowing there are others out there who understand and care.

Here's a treat I left for my kids at the lunch table.  I love this and it comes from the "God wants you to know..." app on FB.

 I think it's a great message.

Hope all is well with everyone and that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Trying to focus on the positive...

I'm sure there are plenty of positives that I could post about but for right now, I am eternally grateful for this:

Yes, It is a box of canned pineapple. I have been eating pineapple every day because I read it helps with RA. (Shhh- I have to admit when I eat it, it makes my joints warm, especially in my wrists. Crazy huh?) Anyhow, I am grateful for the simple box in which I can just open the lid and access my pineapple. I am also grateful for the pop top lids that don't make me wrench my wrists on the can opener to open.

I was even more impressed by the design of the box.

It just lifts right open and folds flat.

Love. it. However, the box for my fruit cocktail. Do.not.love.

It's one of those where the side opens and the cans roll out.

It says it's perfect for the pantry...but my pantry...UGH! My pantry looks like this:

That's the kids offering to help put the groceries away. I needed the help so what can I say really? *sigh*

So to stay on a positive note, homeschool started today in my house. My "classroom" is still not completely set up, but slowly but surely I am getting there. When it's all complete, I'll come back with pics and give you all a classroom tour.

I baked back to school brownies last night. Ohhh were they good. I couldn't finish mine so Hubbins did it for me.

I could sure go for one of those brownies right now. lol

How can this be?

Ok, there are several things that have been bugging me lately. I feel like the world is on my shoulders (I know it's not).

My mom called me several days ago. In case you haven't been reading my blog for very long, I have an ex-stepsister we will call her L. She's pushing 40--still a druggie, still a prostitute...and pregnant again. She had 4 children back to back when I was starting high school and I spent the whole of my high school years and the first part of my college years taking care of them save for a year in college out of state. They were all born drug addicted.

These kids are now almost legal. Only three are alive. C killed herself. That was those kids.

With that background...please also know that before all this happened with my kids I have now, My mother had guardianship of them. She was supposed to have all the kids except for baby Bela who was killed but she let my sister take them anyway.

Alright, with that said...my mom called me. She went on and on about how she misses me and I'm the best kid she has and she tells everyone, blah blah blah. Then she tells me L had the baby and the baby was born addicted to meth. She said they ran background checks on everyone who L had submitted names to get the baby. My mom was the only one who passed. I don't even get that since they terminated her rights and supposedly charged her with failure to protect as well. But I guess that is another story.

The night she called me they had gone to court to decide placement of the baby. Well the judge decided this poor drug addicted baby had no business being pulled from the "mother" who caused this addiction and gave the baby back to L. W. T. F!!!!!

I don't get it. We have these people fighting for the right of an unborn child to live only so the courts can place them in the very circumstances that kill them? How could they lay down this murder sentence for this poor innocent child by giving the child back to her? How can they do this? I can only conclude that it is their way of ridding the world of all the "mistakes". Some sort of twisted survival of the fittest which somehow releases them from a guilty conscience.

Then my mom tells me that L called her. She saw the baby get the shakes from withdrawals and she "sees everything she did to her children." Stupid #$%^$. She will never see what she's done to her children. Even if she sticks around long enough for this one. Withdrawals are a drop in the bucket compared to all I have seen and I was only there for the first several years. The fear, the loneliness, the unhappiness. The kids at school. The confusion. The eternal sadness. That's all the tip of the iceberg. She will never see that. I was so shaking mad, one withdrawal and she thinks she understands.

It's been eating at me that she still has that newborn. It's a death sentence for that baby.

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I had to surrender our dog Dellyne. In our neighborhood there are pits and rottweilers running loose constantly. There are also a ton of unsupervised children daily. Young children.

Dellyne kept getting out of her kennel and our gate. She had on a harness, a collar, two tie downs and was in a dog run and a gated yard. She got out of all that and broke the gate and was down the street where all the mess is.

I couldn't risk her being attacked by one of those other dogs. I couldn't risk a child getting hurt. I did all I could to keep her locked in and safe and she just wasn't having it. So I had to surrender her to the pound. It was heartbreaking, but I know it was the responsible thing to do. She had been getting out for months and I was still able to keep her in for a couple of weeks at a time but by this time she was breaking out every night. At least, I think.

I don't know if someone was coming in. I told Hubbins about the morning before I took her in. I saw the tie downs leading to her dog house. Madi was going to the bathroom and I was calling Dellyne. She wouldn't come out (so I thought). I was asking her if she was still mad at me about the other day and she still didn't come out which was very odd. I walked over to the dog house where I found the collar and the harness thrown in there. I don't really know if she could have done it that way or broken the fence. But she's gone now and I miss her. Stupid dog. Why couldn't she stay in the yard? *sigh*

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Lastly, CDQ started her period. I couldn't sleep over that one. Literally. I stayed up all night until about noon the next day. If you are thinking, isn't there another one before CDQ? Yes. SS is 10, CDQ is 9.

Lovely.

Even more lovelier, I don't think 8 year old Poufy is far behind. She's growing on top just as much as CDQ is. I really wouldn't be surprised if she started next.

As for SS, word through the grapevine is that she is jealous. Oh honey...don't be. Really. I don't know how to tell her she's blessed. lol

I guess first I need to find out what kind of magic they think is going to happen when they get their period because I can't for the life of me understand the happiness that has been coming from this curse development.

The icing on the cake. Mine started the same day. Argh.

Damn my shoulders hurt.

The toothfairy saga continues...

Apparently, after Hubs left from telling me about the tooth situation, he went back and told the boy that he forgot about the toothfairy pillow and that we should really put it in there because that's where the toothfairy knows to go to.

BUT, we can't find the pillow because I'm still unpacking all that we packed so it's on hold until 1.) I find it or 2.) I go back to build-a-bear and buy a new one.

It's been unusually quiet in the house this morning. The four youngest were terrible yesterday. I don't even want to go into the nastiness that took place between them. I'll just say today there will be a lot of steam cleaning. However, I have kept to my word and have thought everyday about what our kids are living with. I think my lack of reaction is what has caused my house to be silent this morning. They are trying to figure out how to attack next. lol

I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished with them today. But then again, I hope that everyday. Hit or miss... The oldest is home from school today, I'm hoping we will finally be able to decorate the tree. If my kids can't get it together, some of us will have to decorate without them.

The oldest told me she doesn't want to live here anymore. She doesn't want to live with "them". They gross her out and they are awful. She's disgusted by them. She told me that I didn't have to worry though because she wouldn't leave me with them. I felt bad and I also thought it was comedy. I mean really where the hell does she think she can go? LOL!

Sorry, it probably doesn't seem funny to anyone but me. I think I am the only one who realizes the true meaning of "this is it." I think somewhere in their little hearts they think my other sister, or some other family member exists that would take them in and that I have just lied to them to keep them here. In all honesty I think if I called their mother today and told her to come get them she would crap a brick. She wouldn't show. Just like she didn't call or visit them. I would never do that to them. I just need to figure out a way to keep those that are moving forward moving so that they don't stay stuck and lost with the others that aren't.

At any rate, I bought a new camera at the black friday sales and I've been dying to use it. My old one kept dying and it would take pictures like 30 seconds later and I was getting nothing I wanted. Don't you hate that? You try and capture a moment and all you get is what happens afterwards because that's when the camera finally decided to take the picture. Sort of makes me want to go back to the old camera and film deal...sort of. I like being able to see that I missed the shot right away. :-)

Dusting myself off and getting back up...

I've written several posts but I haven't posted them for fear you all would think I was depressed or suicidal, which I am not. I'm not in denial either. LOL!

Today I will spend my day putting my house back in order. It is a disaster. It has been for a couple of months. First I was packing, then I didn't think I needed to, then I thought I should, hence the storage and finally I just gave up the whole deal and spent my time running around like a madwoman looking for paperwork, etc...

It's supposedly not quite over, but in my mind it is over and I guess I've known it was over for a while. If you ever come across a mortgage company called America Home Key, run like hell and never look back. They are the true reason we lost everything. They will kiss your ass like crazy until they know you chose them and then they don't care anymore. Honestly, they said they could close in two weeks and that was in August. We are almost at the end of November.

Examples, the woman putting the paperwork together did nothing, let's call her DB for the sake of clarity and what her name should really be. We did all the legwork. We had to find a licensed inspector to do a foundation inspection. Which Hubs thought he did because the woman at the inspection place said she was. I heard it. We gave that number to AHK and the DB called and set it up. 280 some dollars later we come to find out that DB never double checked to make sure we were getting the right thing that they needed on their end. Who do you think should eat that? Sure, the company lied to Hubs about being licensed or maybe they didn't, maybe they just didn't have the right license. But who should have double checked that? I would think the person who is in the field (DB) and knows exactly what they need.

So we are at the signing and we contest that fee. We think AHK screwed up. We hear the title lady telling DB since she believes she (DB) was misled and she (DB) contacted the company and placed the order she (DB) should talk to them.

Here comes the threat... well it's an invoice that needs to be paid or else they can put a lien on their house. The poor title company lady said "Well, nobody wants that."

After we cancelled everything we get a call from an AHK "partner" letting us know that the guy who signed us up was in the hospital having surgery...blah blah blah. He wanted to know what went wrong and why we cancelled but he made sure to drop that little tidbit about not wanting to have our house auctioned off for back taxes.

Uh...let me just take a moment to say "Fuck you sir."

I feel really bad and sorry for people who are losing their houses and the way people must treat them. We have been treated like we are at the brink of losing everything by idiots who have no clue. We are fine. We aren't about to be foreclosed on, we don't have creditors chasing after us, and we are not even late on any payments for anything. But they tried to threaten us. Well, wait, I take that back.

One good thing that came out of this is that we found out our taxes weren't being paid with the mortgage like we thought they were. So we are behind on taxes and they tried to use that to threaten us and intimidate us into signing their bad loan. I ain't worried about it.

I'm just going to call the nice people out there in property tax land and see what I can do about it. They were really nice when they told me I was an idiot and that I should have been opening the notices I was getting every year. ( I am an idiot, I opened the first one and thought it was all good and any ones like it, I never opened, just put them aside thinking it was better that way so they would be all together.) At any rate, I don't think our house will be auctioned off or anything, our taxes aren't that bad, even three years later. *blush* It will take a good chunk of our money, no doubt, but I already did our Christmas shopping a month ago-- yep, sure did!

I guess I should start on getting my act together for Thanksgiving. I have the turkey and the pumpkin for the pies...

It's not bad... It could be worse,we could be in trouble. We could be losing everything, not just our sanity.

Still here!

Taking a break from packing...yep, at 2 am because it's the only time I have where I am totally undisturbed to get things done.

Homeschooling is going great. The kids have changed a lot in a week. The individual attention seems to be working miracles. I hope it continues and isn't just a honeymoon phase.

Poufy is on meds for her Grave's disease. I can't say I see much of a difference. Unless the meds are changing her behavior and not homeschooling. Who knows?

The house. We have to sell our house in order to buy the other house. We were the only offer before the guy went on vacation but while we were there Friday taking pictures and documenting needed repairs a man showed up and I have a feeling he will be making an offer. I heard him tell his wife he was standing in "her home." I felt such rage, frustration, etc...

We need this house and this guy... from his conversation, it's just him and his wife and he just wants something huge to add to his huge arrogant ego. I'm trying not to be bitter but really. There are no other one story homes (to accomodate Hubs disability) with so many bedrooms (one for each kid) that is in our price range. I am at a loss but keeping my faith that God will see this through. He knows what we are going through with RAD kids and he knows how much we really need this.

I've sent e-mails to investors hoping they will swoop down on our house. We are offering it cheap. Especially since there is a planned extension that will lead straight into ABQ right past our house. An investor could rent the place out and then cash in once the extension has been built because Lord knows they are going to want our property. Hubs has it mapped out to about 4 houses from our house. We wish we could hold on to it, but finances won't allow us to qualify to keep both. Bummer.

But I'm willing to let go and move on because I am trying to make this work with the kids. I really am. I think separate bedrooms will make such a difference.

Anyhow, Hubs is doing ok. He went in to see the doctor. She wasn't sure if he has gallbladder issues, an ulcer, or severe heartburn. She did x-rays and took blood and there weren't any indications of a gallbladder problem nor an ulcer. She had already prescribed him heartburn meds. She has him on a low fat diet but she's worried he could lose too much weight too quickly. He's allowed to try more fats but if he gets severe stomach pain again he has to go in for surgery because then it has to be his gallbladder. I'm worried.

My job hours have been increased to what I had before. They made a mistake with Hubs case and in my frustration and anger, I suggested Hubs write to "his people" ( Hubs spends hours writing letters to politicians and signing petitions, lol) so he wrote Governor Richardson and he came through and fixed things for Hubs temporarily. I'm proud of Hubs for taking a stand.

Our first Girl Scout meetings (long story) went well. I have another one this week and I have to confess, I am not ready. But those little Daisy girls are sooo cute.

Well, I better go, we've gotta get the house on the market this week. Please keep us in your prayers for the sale of this house and the purchase of the other. We were able to secure a loan that would allow us to borrow the money to fix it up even.

Hope all is well with everyone :-)