Tag Archives: rants

Just call me Linus

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Daily Drivel, In Hindsight, Random Tangents, Random Thoughts, Rants

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Have you ever had something you loved so much as a child that it hurt you like crazy to lose it? Even now at 43 years old I’ve been sitting here wanting to cry my eyes out thinking about my favorite blanket.

It all started when I ran into this picture online, of a blanket just like the one I used to have. I got it for christmas as a kid, and throughout most of my life, it was my prized possession.

Unfortunately it was stolen several years ago, and ever since occasionally, especially when I am really stressed out, or sad I really start to miss it again. As I said before, it was my security blanket. For years and years it went with me everywhere I went or moved, and I never slept a night without it. Having it ripped away hurt more than it probably should, but I am sure almost all of us have at some point in our lives lost something that meant a great deal to us.

I’ve been searching for 10 years now for one like it to no avail. Every time I see a listing for one online, the item has already sold, and sometimes I wonder if I will ever have my blanket back. Well it won’t be MY blanket, but one sort of like it, and I know that. Just call me Linus. I know it wouldn’t be the same, but believe me getting one like it back again would make me feel a whole lot better.

Cross your fingers for me please….this search is far from over…

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Emotional Rollercoaster

23 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Complaint Department, Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Faith, In Hindsight, Rants, Taterbug, Writing

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Life has surely had its ups and downs the last couple of months here. We’ve jumped through so many hoops, sometimes I wonder how much more jumping I have left in me. Being this stressed is exhausting. It’s easy for others to tell you not to worry, when they really have no idea what you are going through. Sometimes I wish people would do a little less telling me not to worry, and just ask me what it is they can do to help. Life would be so much easier.

We are still looking for a new place to live, and for a short while, we thought we had found what seemed the near-perfect place for us. It was a nice house in a very small town an hour to the north of where we live now. John’s mom was going to help us get the down payment to be able to buy it, and I thought things were finally looking up.

That was until, lo and behold, and out of state buyer swooped in at the last moment, and outbid our offer by several thousand dollars.

Needless to say I was crushed and still am. Now I guess it is back to the drawing board. The realtor says she has more homes she can show us, but in our price range, the selection is kind of limited. Part of me is almost afraid to get my hopes up, but I want us to have a nice home of our own so badly. Rents are way out of league around here, buying seems like our only option if we have a prayer of affording anything. Rent on a comparable house would be four times as much as the mortgage payment would be, at the very least.

I just want a stable place to call home. I want somewhere for Thor to grow up, and not worry him over having to move every few years. I want to be able to paint walls a color that isn’t white or beige, and hang as many pictures as I darn well please. Now that my older kids are grown, in a few years I want something their kids will be able to call grandma and grandpa’s house, somewhere they can run back and forth in and jump up and down on the floor in without driving the downstairs neighbors insane.

Maybe it’s all just too much to ask for, but I have to keep trying. Hopefully when next week comes, there will be better news.

Meanwhile the little guy is growing like a weed and into everything. He keeps me smiling even when it seems like the job of trying to keep up with him never ends. He is almost frighteningly smart nowadays. He already knows how to do basic things not only on our cell phone, but also on the computer. He can open iTunes and play his favorite music, which I think he recognizes by the album cover pictures. He also already uses about a dozen different words , with some of his most consistent ones being: up, spoon, hi, no, and of course the word, owl. He still can’t seem to get enough of owls, which have been his favorite animal since he was only a few weeks old, but which are now having to share a special place in his heart with cats, especially his now much beloved stuffed cat named Tygie.

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Tygie is the first toy that I can say, Thor picked out all by himself. He takes him almost anywhere and everywhere now, at least around the house. We try to make sure he leaves him at home when we have somewhere to go, because we are a little afraid of the cat getting lost. Thor would be devastated if that happened. He won’t go to sleep at nap time or at bedtime without him.

As you can see, orange cats are by far his favorite, I think because they look like our real live cats. The kitty here in the photo with Tygie is our oldest cat, who unfortunately came to us already with the name Boobies. He is quite an old man now, at 19 years old, and is very well loved, if slightly afraid of our son when he’s being noisy and moving too quickly near him. Thankfully Thor is getting much better about being gentle with the cats, and doesn’t pull tails nearly as often as he used to.

I am unsure what else to write about at this time. It’s hard to write, let alone be creative when your mind seems so busy with every day worries that seem so overwhelming. Writing used to be an escape, but nowadays it seems impossible when life seems this overwhelming. I am hoping to some day soon to at least have something good to write about here, instead of all this seemingly endless venting of the day’s issues.

Even if it is with much ranting and complaining, I always seem to keep moving, somehow…

 

 

Thinking Turkey Thoughts

28 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by in Complaint Department, Holiday Thoughts, Rants

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Holidays aren’t easy for me. I know that statement will be hard to explain to some people. Life hasn’t been easy for a long time, years now, even decades. I was a child the last time I really have good memories to look back on, even related to holidays.

I know some people joke about wondering how long it will take during the holidays for the police to be called, but in my family it’s a distinct possibility. The last time I remember spending Christmas with my family two fights broke out, and that was just christmas eve. I haven’t eaten a thanksgiving dinner I haven’t cooked myself in so many years that I can’t even remember when the last one I ate with my family was. I do however remember it was horrible and not much worth writing about food wise.

Being just me and my oldest daughter for years on the holidays, I never did the whole big turkey and all that, not that I ever could have afforded to anyway. Usually Thanksgiving for us meant pork chops and stuffing with mashed potatoes at home, and eating in front of the tv still in our pajamas. It was always just the two of us, or at least on most years.

Last year I think I made a half-effort at making a little bit of turkey, but not a whole one. It came out mostly ok, even if the veggies ended up a shriveled mess and not exactly edible. Cue this year’s second attempt, which I will be trying in a crock pot instead of the oven, because the oven will be occupied by my roommate’s god awful tofurkey. Just the thought of tofurkey makes me shudder with revulsion.

Holidays are hard, and the funk they leave me in is hard to shake myself from. All I usually end up thinking of is how much I envy people with close and loving families, and how I’d give almost anything to be part of a family like that. Yes, I have a husband and kids, and memories to build there, but thinking of the past and the mess that is the rest of my family, still hurts to no end, and probably always will. I see how it is even affecting my kids now and it upsets me so badly I could scream. Three generations of this family have been completely ruined by all this dysfunction and drama my mother and aunt just can’t seem to bury the hatchet over.

I really hope someone brings my grandmother dinner tomorrow, I would if I had a car, and weren’t so far away. I hate the thought of her sitting in that house all alone, especially with this being the first Thanksgiving that my grandfather has been gone. I worry a lot for her now, but there’s only so much I can do living an entire state away. The rest of the family is too busy not speaking to one another to really care I think, as they have been every year for who knows how long. All I can do is call grandma tomorrow, and at least let her know she hasn’t been forgotten.

Turkey is all well and good, but what I’d really love to have someday is a family that acts like a family, at least long enough to make it through dinner.

Am I wrong to just keep wishing?

 

The smallest always lose the most

03 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Complaint Department, Rants

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I have a lot of worries on my mind the last couple of days, but also a lot of frustration and anger, when it comes to the current state of American politics. I could give two hoots less about the national parks, or the fact that Joe office worker with a nice cushy government job might get a few days or weeks of staying at home and twiddling his thumbs. What has me angry, scared and ready to pull my hair out for their astounding sheer idiocy the most?

The government shutdown is shutting down the WIC program. Talk about hitting our most vulnerable citizens where it hurts the most.

For those of you unfamiliar with WIC let me summarize: Wic is a federally funded program that provides infant formula and basic nutritious foods to low income children age 5 and under, and expectant mothers. Unlike food stamps, only approved foods in set amounts can be purchased with WIC vouchers. Not all people who receive WIC get food stamps, as the income guidelines to qualify are very different. The help WIC provides can make a tremendous difference to struggling families. Unlike foods provided by food pantries, the foods WIC provides are perishable staple foods such as infant formula, baby food (fruits and veggies)cows milk, cheese, cereal, eggs, juice and a small amount of fresh vegetables every month.

The children WIC provides help to are too small to qualify for free school lunches, and do not have that option. Food pantries usually do not stock infant formula, because the WIC program is usually able to provide it. If the shutdown goes on, older children will be able to adapt much easier than infants, who depend on formula and are not old enough to be table fed exclusively. In the present situation infants will be the most vulnerable citizens of all, when there is absolutely no reason it should come to this.

It frustrates me how the news media is decrying the closure of the national parks more than this valuable and life changing program being stripped of its funding. Bears will crap in the woods whether a few tourists are there to watch them or not, and the memorials will be there when the crisis is over.

I hope that those of you who have the means to, would consider donating some infant formula to food banks and other charities that feed the hungry right here at home, where we need it the most at this time, until the idiocy in Washington resolves itself. Many families are presently hanging by the thread trying to stay above water, and provide for their children, and programs like WIC make all the difference. I should know, my family is one of them.

Kids are going hungry right here in this country…

Kids go to bed every night that way more than you think…

As a nation, we should be ashamed of that!

Hope and the pessimist

18 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Complaint Department, Daily Drivel, Evil Wizard, Rants

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I know I’ve talked a lot here the last couple of years about our housing situation, and why it is driving me crazy. We’ve been stuck here in this apartment for the last two years now, living with my husband’s ex-girlfriend for a roommate no less. Our apartment search this entire time has been one huge disappointment after another. We are being priced right out of even thinking of getting our own apartment, even in a not so great neighborhood.

There isn’t as much of a safety net for the disabled as a lot of people seem to think there is in this country now. Waiting lists for public housing are over a decade long if they are open at all, and most low income housing that exists, is set aside specifically for the elderly. My husband and I will not qualify to live in one of those places for quite some time yet.

The fact remains that the so called “fair market” rate for a two bedroom apartment is over 900 a month in this area. This is more than my entire income, and not much less than what my husband and I make combined. Think about it, that’s just rent, not heating the place, or keeping the lights on. It’s amazing how some people have the impression that the disabled are living so high on the hog, when we can’t even afford even a small apartment of our own to live in.

The worst part about looking for an apartment here are what places like to call “application fees.” Most housing in this area is owned by out of town investment companies, who hire locals to “manage” the properties for them. Most of these companies not only charge high rents, but want upwards of $150 dollars per adult in the household just to apply to live there, this fee is non-refundable if they reject your application. They also want the last 6 months worth of pay stubs, to see your tax returns for the last 3 years, a credit check and a federal background check just to be considered. Even if we don’t have to worry about our credit or income…who can really afford all those fees?

My husband thinks the reason he’s seen so many apartments listed for so long, is because these landlords are making more money not renting the place, and just rejecting people’s applications than they would actually renting the apartment. I mean think about it, if you get 10 applicants a week at $150 a pop,for an apartment that rents for 800, you’ve come out further ahead to let the place sit empty don’t you think?

Someone recently told us getting a mortgage right now is actually easier than getting an apartment because of that, so we have decided to try it. A mortgage does seem to be very much cheaper than rents here, our monthly payments would be only about a third of what it would cost to rent a comparable house in the same kind of neighborhood. The question is, can two disabled people even get a mortgage? Are they going to look at our meager income and not even give us the time of day?

All I know is I really don’t want to spend another year here, walking on eggshells in my own home, dealing with someone who’s not only his ex, but someone who’s mere outlook on everything from politics to family values, happens to be nearly polar opposite to my own. I don’t want to deal with someone who refuses to budge an inch on letting us have the third bedroom, when we pay 2/3 of everything here. My son having his own room will soon be more important than her having her “office” and a place to store all that extra junk she can’t squeeze into her already packed tight bedroom. I can’t stand the fact that she thinks it’s okay to smoke in here, when there’s a baby in the house, and she thinks it’s good enough that she just shuts her bedroom door. The smoke still travels, I can still smell it. We have an outside balcony for that, for pete’s sake, it won’t kill her to use it.

I want to be hopeful here, but it’s hard. Life right now just seems like a lot of jumping through one hoop after another, just to get further behind than when we began. When being here is so hard that I wan’t to pack my son up sometimes and move back where I came from, where things are awful but at least affordable, there is a problem.

All I know is that at least if nothing else, but for my peace of mind, by the end of the year, I want to be far away from here. I don’t care if we are in our own home having bought a place, or we have picked up and moved somewhere entirely new. I can’t take another year of the same old situation, and the same old worries. Something has to change for anything to get better, it has to.

Why?

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Chipmunk, Evil Wizard, Rants, Taterbug, Winnifrog

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Let me say I am first off not writing this to tear people down, but to make people think about their actions, and the effects they can have now, and even years and decades later on their children. Some people, and even relatives will not agree with what I am writing. You have your point of view about how the situation was in the past, but I also have mine. All I know is how what happened then, and continues to happen to this day looks and feels to me. When I am still laying in bed at night at 42 years old crying over what might have been, something is wrong, something needs to be said because bottling everything all these years has never worked and still isn’t working.

The last time in my life I can really remember being truly blissfully happy I was only four or five years old. I remember the day my little sister came home clearly, she was sleeping in that white cradle in the front room. I don’t remember feeling jealous even at four years old, I just remember wanting to help, and not being allowed to. Suddenly I was too noisy, in the way, and no one had time for me. I remember as a kid spending most evenings with babysitters, while my mom, bowled, played sports and went out with friends. She wasn’t always the most picky about who she left us with, some of them were really not very good people.

I can remember many times over the years growing up wondering what was wrong with me, and why my parents kept me at arms length, and yet seemed to love my younger sister the way they did. I probably wasn’t the easiest child to deal with, but there were so many times they should have seen just what was going on with me and either overlooked it, or just didn’t want to see it. I wanted so many times to tell someone what was happening to me at that age, but a six year old doesn’t have those words on their own. Nobody, not one single person, be it a teacher, a counselor, or a relative ever once asked me the right questions. Why couldn’t I sit still? Why was I always staring off into space? Why wasn’t I listening? Those were the only questions I ever heard.

Why did my parents never look further to figure out what was going on with me? I don’t get it. Everyone was so quick to label me hyperactive (the label they used before ADHD became the new term) and shove me onto ritalin, and into what other kids called the “dummy class” even though my IQ was high enough that I could actually do work several grades ahead of my level. I remember by only the second or third grade not even wanting to go to school. Bullying was already bad then, and by middle school it was downright intolerable.

It’s hard to understand unless you have been there I think. School wasn’t about education for me, but only about making it through the day and hoping nothing bad would happen to me. In the course of my “education” I’ve been not only verbally bullied, but beaten up, and once was almost sexually assaulted at school by a group of guys who thought it would be fun to try dragging me into an empty science lab after school let out. (Thankfully someone helped me but wound up in the ER because of it) The school did nothing…didn’t even call the police.

Almost everything I have ever learned worth knowing I have taught myself, mostly by reading. I spent most of high school drawing or writing poetry. I had one or two friends, but no really close ones. For the most part I lived in a world of my own. Eventually after my grandfather died, and the few things keeping me stable enough to function started to come apart, I dropped out halfway through my senior year. I just couldn’t take the pressure and the daily abuse there anymore.

I went through a stage where I didn’t want to do anything, fell in with the partyers just to think I belonged somewhere, even though now with older eyes I know almost all of them were just using me. It didn’t seem there was much point to life right then, I was just not dealing with things, and like a lot of my so called “friends” I was just trying to have what we thought was fun.

Everything changed when I found out I was having my son. Even being on my own with his dad not wanting to be anywhere near in the picture, I still felt I finally had something to care about. I went back to school in an alternative program, and finally finished up getting my diploma. I graduated high school, and gave birth to my second baby two days later.

My twenties and even thirties were a string of one bad relationship after another, during which time I had a third child during another short lived relationship. Sometimes you want so badly to be loved that you don’t often realize why you keep making the same bad choices over and over. Looking back now I realize most of those men had a lot of qualities in common with my mother. They were all very demanding, emotionally and verbally abusive, and all very very much all about themselves, and their own wants and needs.

It took me a long time to finally realize why I kept falling into that pattern, and seven years of being alone, before I was finally ready to take a chance on any new relationship. That time I took a chance with a friend who was very different from my usual “type”, and very much more similar to me in personality. I’d finally found someone who could hold a good conversation with me, and not look down at me, or tell me I was crazy or stupid for thinking the things I think, or believe. I’m not all that silly, he was a keeper, so I married him.

I got upset last night and was crying when I thought about what he had said to me earlier in the evening. He asked me why when I’m upset, or stressed out, I curl up inside my shell and won’t talk to him. I don’t mean to push him away, but old habits are hard to break, when living inside yourself was the only way you knew how to survive for so long. Again it’s hard to explain to people who have never been there.

Sometimes I wonder why I’ve been through all of this….

All I’ve ever wanted was to be loved…

Now that I have what I’ve always wanted, it’s hard to change. The more stressed I get the more I fall back into old habits and defenses. These are things I need to work on. Optimism doesn’t come naturally to me. I make one hell of a conspiracy theorist when I am looking for reasons to worry. My nickname isn’t Eeyore for nothing…

The only way I can think to end this post is with a few words of advice. Take them for what they are worth. They are just things I have really wanted to say lately, and really just didn’t know how.

Even if you love your children for different reasons, and feel closer to one child than another, please make sure they all know they are loved and valued. Favoritism hurts more than most parents will ever realize.

Kids, and especially girls who do not believe they are loved and valued at home will turn elsewhere to find the affection they are longing for. Abusers are drawn to these kids like a magnet Love from their family can make all the difference in a child’s future and their relationships with others. Any sense of belonging has to begin at home, without it, some of us float for a lifetime feeling like we don’t belong anywhere.

We want so badly to know that we matter, and our lives, however hard have purpose…

Is this all just a pointless ramble?

Can you really understand?

Ouch from the couch…

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Complaint Department, Rants

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I’m grumpy, I’m tired and I’m sore. Last night after coming home from the chiropractor my back went into such a bad spasm that I spent half the night in the emergency room, because I had to break down and actually do something about the pain. I don’t know whether something went wrong while being adjusted yesterday, or whether lugging around my 22 pound son car seat and all threw my back out on the way home.

I hate taking pain pills, can’t stand it…don’t even want them in my house usually.

Today I am still sore, but not nearly as bad as last night thank goodness. I’ve been taking it easy and using my husband’s lap desk from the sofa to type on. I know I shouldn’t just sit here, and I need to move around a little to get myself unstiffened again, but I don’t wanna.

Maybe food would be a good idea…Lucky Charms you have become my new favorite food for the evening. Ain’t cooking, can’t make me.

First annual Crabapple Awards

05 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in Fun Stuff

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crabappleaward

Some days ya just don’t wanna post…

Some days you feel a little crabby, but even if it’s only to rant, you post anyway..

These are the blogging awards for the rest of us!

Some of us would dearly love to be able to have those picture perfect parenting blogs full of happy smiling well behaved (who the heck do you think you are kidding?) children. I would love to be able to post mouth watering pics of my diet of mac and cheese and cereal, but after the first few bowls it gets kinda boring.

I won’t post a long questionnaire for recipients, but simply this:

1. Repost this pic on your blog

2. Rant a little about procrastination and life getting in the way etc.

3. Nominate 3 people who’s blogs you love, even on their not so sunny days.

My first round of recipients are:

Mommy Training Wheels

MomTimes4

Snoozing On The Sofa

I wish I could nominate everyone, but I’m trying to keep it short, sweet and not a huge ordeal like a lot of other awards to pass along.

When it rains it pours

07 Sunday Apr 2013

Posted by in Boredom, Complaint Department, NaNoWriMo, Rants

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So far I am not doing well this year for Camp NaNoWriMo, at least not where word count is concerned. I think my personal life is conspiring against me to keep me from getting much of anything done. Isn’t that usually how it works?

I have only one chapter of my novel written so far, but at least I am semi-happy with it. I have an idea of where the story needs to go for a change, but my biggest thing is finding the time to actually sit down and put words on paper. It wouldn’t be such an issue if there weren’t so many important things that were pressing in my life right now. Doctors need to be seen, appointments need to be kept, and babies need to be tended to, even if it means you are too exhausted to write a coherent sentence once you have them to sleep.

You don’t need to see the screen or the keyboard, the cat believes looking at him is infinitely more interesting…

Sorry no updates until now, pardon me while I return to fighting the cat for custody of my keyboard. You may now return to your regularly scheduled blog surfing.

A captive audience

11 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in Boredom, Complaint Department, Evil Wizard, Music, Rants, Taterbug

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Oh dear lord, someone give me earplugs…

No, seriously…

It’s time for my husband’s weekly internet radio broadcast. While I usually like a lot of what he plays, this week is a definite stinkbomb. I don’t know who this band or singer is but I wish this droning, off key, monotone, barritone would stop already. Ick! Someone make it stop. But nope I still have another hour left to listen to it.

Help!..

On a lighter note, the weather here was beautiful today. We put the baby in the stroller and took a nice long walk. We did discover that short of the Giant Eagle here, absolutely nothing seems to be open on a Sunday afternoon. Then again they tend to roll up the sidewalks on our and of town around 6 or 7 in the evening during the week, so I really shouldn’t be surprised.

John insisted on hanging a bunch of tapestries on the wall of the bedroom today. The longer we are married, the more I realize I’ve married a hippie. John is anything but normal, but really that’s one of the things I like about him, even if parts of his not so normalness do kinda get to me sometimes. I am sure I am no picnic to be married to on some days either. I think one of the reasons we do get along so well, is that we both are willing to just let each other be our weird little selves. Even if some things about him drive me batty, I’m still really really happy that my hubby is anything but normal.

If the men from my past were normal, I will gladly take my weirdo hippie any day of the week..!

And the music drones on, and here I sit a captive audience…

*Headdesk*