Ummm...

My car has sporadically started not starting. Help!

Wait, did that make sense? Started not starting...

Anyway, when the kids and I went to leave from Alex's Taekwondo class tonight, Bob (yes, we've dubbed our car Bob, it stands for Bucket of bolts) wouldn't start. Ack!

Well, Bob finally started, but now I'm freaking out.

I know the battery is good because I just put a new one in, and my neighbor helped me replace the starter motor just a few months ago. What worries me is that this is exactly what happened when the starter motor went out.

Crap.

Grateful

I am blessed beyond measure by the people that I'm surrounded with at work. 

Things have been hard recently, well, not that they're ever not hard, but lately things have been incredibly difficult. 

The kids and I are living on the raggedy edge right now, and every. single. day. has been a struggle.  

To put food on the table.

To keep a roof over our head. 

To keep the lights on. 

To put gas in the car.

To pay for daycare. 

And in the midst of all this I have seen the most amazing outpouring of love and care and concern from several of the people that I work with. Some are dear, close friends, and some I only know as acquaintances, but all of them have touched my heart recently. 

We all had our hours cut at work, we are all struggling, but despite all of that they have still reached out to the kids and I and blessed us by bringing over groceries, by giving me money and not taking my 'no' for an answer, by giving me hand-me-downs for the kids, by giving me a hug when I need it, and by simply being there for me. 

These wonderful, sweet people have been God's love letter to me over the past two months and I am filled with nothing but gratitude.  

Sorry it's been quiet...

We had a garage sale today.

Pity me.

I hate doing garage sales. You get up at the butt crack o' dawn, spend countless hours beforehand getting all the stuff ready and schlepping it down out of the attic,  and then to add insult to injury you mark your stuff down to ridiculously low prices only to have people look at you like you're crazy when they ask you how much it is, after which they proceed to try and haggle you down. 'You want one dollar for that very nice, clean, almost brand new coat? How about twenty-five cents?'

Sigh.

I made about $30 all told. Oh well, at least it was enough to cover the gap to pay the portion of my electricity bill that will keep them from shutting off our power (which was the goal anyway).

Excuse me while I go collapse.

Loss

My sweet, sweet grandmother passed away suddenly towards the end of June. It was a terrible loss for our family, and one that I think I am still processing.

It happened the day after the kids and I had gone to visit her, and I think that it was such a shock because she seemed so full of life when we saw her. I just thank God that we got to see her one last time and that our last words were I love yous.

I miss her terribly, and I know that my mother, aunt, and uncle feel that loss even more. What hurts the most is that we weren't able to attend the memorial service, it kills me to not have been there. It was held in California because most of my family is there, and the place that my grandfather was buried and where my grandmother wanted to be buried is there also. I just didn't have the money to fly the kids and I out there, and it makes me ill to think about it, but I  remind myself that the times that we spent together and the last visit that we were able to have with her are what was important.

I was blessed to have four generations of my family alive and together at the same time. It was a precious thing that my children got to know and love their great-grandmother, their Nana, and to know that she adored them in return.

I love you Nana, and I miss you.

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.

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.

Something's Gotta Give

And I'm really starting to worry that it might be me. 

As much as I am so deeply grateful to my parents for taking us in, things are starting to reach a boiling point. It's starting to wear on everybody. 

The kids and I make things difficult for my mom, and she has to babysit for me a few days a week while I go to work because I can't afford daycare. My teenage brother has no respect for the fact that there are small kids in the house, and his lifestyle reflects it. I've tried talking to him, but all I get out of him is outright hostility. My parents try to stay out of how I raise my children, but it's difficult when you live in the same house. That is wearing on me more than I want to admit. 

My job sucks. Let's face it, I'm working part-time at a grocery store for $8.40 an hour. I can't support my kids on that. I want things to work out with my husband, but I also have to look out for my kids. We've been through this sort of situation before, and he has fallen back into the same habits. As much as I want this to work, I can't stick my head in the sand and not have something to rely on in case things end badly. I have to get a better job. I've never been in the real workforce, I've only worked in retail jobs and I am totally clueless in regards to job hunting. 

So this is my to-do list for myself:

- Find housing

- Look into daycare

- Find a better job


The simplicity of that list belies the sheer amount of misery behind it. All the heartache, stress, and fear. 

God help me, Lord knows that I can't do this on my own. 

Geez I'm feeling sorry for myself tonight. 

Struggling

I'm exhausted. 

I've been up since 4:30 this morning, but it's more than that. This is a mental, emotional, spiritual exhaustion. I'm really not sure how much more of this I can handle, and the hell of it is I don't have any choice. I have to handle it whether I want to or not because it's not just me in this boat. I have two kids getting dragged along through this mess that they didn't ask for, and what kills me is knowing that I did this to them. When things are hard, when my son misses his dad and his cousins, when we don't have enough, when I'm gone because I have to work, I have to live with the fact that my choices have caused this. 

Now I don't mean this in regards to the separation. My husband is at fault for that, and I stand by my decision to leave. 

No, I mean in a broader sense. It was my choice that caused me to get pregnant so young, to marry a boy instead of a man, to bring another child into a marriage that I knew in my heart of hearts was in trouble. It's all these things that I'm guilty of. 

I cherish my children. I will never, ever regret them. But I regret each second of pain and hardship that my selfishness and stupidity has caused them. 

I have screwed up so monumentally that I don't know how I can ever make it okay. I won't say 'right' because I don't think that I can ever make it right. But I hope for okay. I hope for good. My faith tells me that God can bring me out of these ruins that I've pulled down around myself and my children, but everything else in me says otherwise. 

I am trying to cling to God's promises, but it is so hard in the muck and the mire of the everyday. I am filled with so much self-doubt and fear. I'm so far down in this hole that I don't see how I'm ever going to get out.