Monday, October 20, 2008

Too Sweet

Alex woke up really early last Saturday, and can you guess where I was? Yep, where any responsible parent would be. Still in bed.

Cough.

So I finally drag my butt out of bed and go downstairs to make myself some breakfast before Sarah wakes up, and I'm kind of confused to see a glass of juice and a full bowl of cereal on the counter. Alex comes downstairs, cheerful as only a seven-year-old can be at such an ungodly hour, and I ask him if he's eaten breakfast. He tells me he has.

I look at him, he looks back at me, "So, what's with this bowl of cereal and juice then?"

"Oh, I made you breakfast."

I had conflicting emotions at that point. Gosh, it was so sweet of him to do that. Gosh, how long had that cereal been sitting in the milk for?

I couldn't not eat it after he had gone to all the trouble of fixing it.

So, I sit down at the counter and take a bite. The cereal was Frosted Mini Wheats, and they had turned to complete mush and soaked up most of the milk.

The milk was warm.

Ewwww.

Have I mentioned that I love being a mom?

Sunday, October 19, 2008

What I Know For Sure

When I was at work last night, the cover of Oprah's magazine caught my eye.

It said on the cover, "What do you know for sure?" And that got me to thinking, what are things in my life that I know to be true regardless of my opinions, emotions, or circumstances?

So, this is what I came up with. This is what I know for sure:

My God loves me.

I love my kids.

I'm in a lot of trouble right now.

It could be a hell of a lot worse.

Not a huge list. Not very significant things, at least as far as someone else might be concerned, but ones that are terribly important and reassuring to me.

It's nice to have some things that I can be sure of.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Shakespeare

So I was at work the other night, and I was startled to look up and see a tree coming at me.

No, I'm not kidding.

We had ficus', ficuses, ficusi? Anyway, we had ficus trees on sale and this gentleman had two or three in a buggy. I sold him the trees and was chuckling about it after he had gone through. The next customer noticed and said, "Hark, a moving forest."

I laughed and nodded, "Yep, Macbeth."

He looked kind of surprised, "Wow, you know your Shakespeare."

It's a comfort to know that I'm not wasting my education working at The Grocery Store.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

I Love My Life, Really I Do

So I show up at The Grocery Store at 6pm for my shift. I clocked in only to have it say,
'Too early, see your manager,' which was really strange considering I was actually two minutes late.

Was I not scheduled tonight? Did I mix up my hours or something?

Nope, I looked at the schedule and they had changed my hours from 6-midnight to 8-midnight. All three nights this weekend, and the one night I'm scheduled to work next weekend.

Shit.

Sorry, but this warrants profanity.

In keeping with the theme of the night my friend hands me this thick envelope when I clock back in at eight that says 'personal and confidential' all over the front of it. Crap, this can't be good either. I finally got a chance to look at it an hour or so into work.

The IRS has tracked me down and decided to garnish my wages against back-taxes that my husband and I owe.

Shit.

When I finally stop having a heart attack and look at the dates on the paperwork I see that they were due October 6, and that 'heavy fines will be incurred if this is not dealt with in a timely manner.'

Double-shit.

Guess I'm making some phone calls on Monday.

This starts a whole avalanche of trouble and puts me in a world of hurt because not only are they going to garnish these wages, they'll come after my wages at the school, and then they'll clean out my bank account. I know this because they've already done this to my husband, and they're garnishing 25% of his paycheck.

What frustrates me the most is that I've been trying to take care of it. I've contacted the tax advocate office through the IRS twice now, and they've never gotten back to me. I've never been able to get a hold of a live person there. As far as I can tell, they only have an automated voicemail that tells you to leave your information and that they'll get in contact with you no later than one business day after you leave the message. My next step is to call the regular IRS number and to go down to the physical Tax advocate office. Who knows, maybe that's automated too.

Like I said, I love my life.

I'm going to bed.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Hurtful

Alex was on the phone with his dad tonight, and I overheard some things that he said that upset me deeply. I don't listen in on their phone conversations, I feel that this is a time for just Alex and his dad to talk. I don't think that his dad is saying anything negative or subversive, or anything like that. I trust him on this issue.

Alex, on the other hand, always seems to be negative when he's on the phone with him. I know it's silly to be upset by things that a seven-year-old is saying, but I can't help it. All I hear during these phone calls is, "It's boring here.", "Nobody can ever play with me.", "Mom never lets me do anything.", "She always makes me play outside and it's boring."... On and on.

It hurts. It really does.

I am trying my damndest to make things the best I can for Alex, and apparently it doesn't matter to him at all. I try and remind myself that he's only seven, that he usually enjoys himself here, that he's playing with his friends almost all the time, that we do things together as a family. It seems that these bursts of self-pity only come out when he's having a bad day or when things don't go his way, but it's hard to remember when I hear him telling his dad these things over the phone. And of course this makes me feel like a jerk, because what must my husband be thinking when he hears these things?

I don't know, it just sucks.

I think I need to go to bed now.

'Night guys.