the panhandler and the D I V O R C E

I was alone at work most of the day and oddly it went by quick-I was thinking it would be slow as molasses. I did lunch alone. There is a subway a block away and I walked over there and on the way back got hit up by a panhandler.

From a bad mugging experience from a panhandler years ago I don't respond to them well at all. This one got pissed when I said no, followed and heckled me. I never felt unsafe, there were many people around downtown.

Overall it was a good day-I got caught up on most of my bills, did some shopping and lazed around after I got home but still feel a sort of depression hanging over me. I can't pinpoint what it is. It has been lingering for a few weeks. I usually don't cry while watching movies but lately I have been a blubber baby.

I'm usually not an emotional person outwardly, I tend to be more reserved so it has thrown me off a bit. I know to some it seems like I am cold, Rick said that he has never met someone so reserved emotionally before.

For instance-a couple of friends of ours split after 9 years. While I am sad and feel badly for both I haven't got caught up in their "drama" and see it for what it really is-a bad divorce where both sides are using emotions to control as well as the he said/he said game.

I think I wrote about it here once where Rick has chosen one side over the other and I haven't. I still haven't but I tend to talk more to the one that doesn't want to talk for 3 hours about their pity party.

So both of them and Rick think that I am weird that I haven't been devistated by the breakup. Then when I tried to explain to Rick how I see what is going on (games, etc) he said how can you not be more emotional about this.

I told him that one person is trying to control the other by one day coming over and the next day saying I never want to see you again-this is the person who left yet still keeps showing up when he needs something. The other person is trying to get sympathy (and control the other) by saying that he will never love another person again and no one will ever want him and he has no reason for living.

It is exhausting dealing with both of them and I got tired of being used where they both ask what the other had said. I don't think Rick had looked at what each are getting out of the relationship still-even though it is over.

My Mom has a saying-People and pigs like to wallow in Sh** because its warm and gooey. I think this applies to both.

Don't get me wrong-I don't look down on them at all and do sympathize and have my own problems-I think that is why I don't want to deal with theirs as well and I'm fed up with their relationship issues spilling over into mine.

Ok, I'm through venting/ranting :0 I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow and a wonderful weekend.

Two surprises...

#1) I knew that we were having a going away get together today at the office for an intern that is graduating and going on to get her Masters. So at about 2:30 today we all gathered and I was looking forward to a mid afternoon sugar rush of cake and cookies. On the table was a gift for her and two cards.

I'm standing there drooling for cake and was handed a card with my name on it. I said, uh oh, it's a going away party for two????

Apparantly it was Executive Assistant Day-Everyone had passed a card around and chipped in for a Barnes and Nobles gift certificate. I was really surprised since I hadn't been there that long.

I finally feel comfortable with 90% of what I'm doing and still don't dread going to work. Of course when I get up in the morning and would rather go back to bed, but once I get going I'm fine.

#2) Today Rick looked up our insurance coverage pertaining to therapist/counseling on his own initiative. I was really surprised he did this without me having to badger him for weeks! The best part is that it is free.

I hope Rick follows through. I'm definetely going to use this. Look out therapist/counselor here I come...

Rainy Monday..

Work went by pretty fast today. I got caught up on a bunch of paperwork and did some organizing.

We had a nice rain, but it got colder-around 40-finally clearing up after dinner.

The training on the weekend went well-I learned a lot of things that will help, not just in the job, but in life in general. So far something I have learned in training has helped in two instances. I've never had training before that after it is complete I get a badge-so I'm looking forward to that.

Rick is getting depressive about work. Escalated calls in customer service can't be fun. I'm trying to get him to go to a therapist/counselor in order to learn new ways on handling those types of calls. He gets real quiet when its almost time for work and has used several of his vacation days already just so he won't have to go deal with it.

While I can completely understand that, I don't want him to live like that-been there, done that. I think it will help in that aspect as well as many others. I also suggested a blog to help vent-works for me! I told him tomorrow after work I'll show him how to set one up and get going with it.

I have been thinking about going to see someone-I figured it can't hurt. I've been to one before and got a lot out of it.

I hope everyone had a good Monday and that Tuesday is even better.

An apology and lots of scanning...

Today was a pretty good day, it flew by because it was so hectic and busy.

We are preparing for an appreciation dinner for tomorrow and I had to scan about 200 pictures to be used for a slide show. I will have to rethink my scanner/printer position. I kept having to stand up to insert the picture and then sit down to run the program. I wasn't too busy with normal things so I was glad to help out-the person I am helping is so much busier than I and it felt good to lighten her load.

Tomorrow will be pretty busy with setting up for the dinner. I'm looking forward to it. Then we have training for the next two weekends I will help prepare for as well as attend.

Rick finally saw things my way about his daughter-he has been really nice yesterday and today-I even got an apology which is rare. I think it helped that everyone ganged up on him and took my side-his mother, sister, x-wife....

So it's shaping up to be a good week, although busy. Even a friend of mine that had been out of town for awhile is back in town and I'm hoping to see him Friday.

I get paid Friday too-even better. I'll be able to pay a few bills that are late.
I'm hoping in a few weeks to be caught up and maybe have some savings as well.

My Mother went to see a radiologist and it was good news. He told her with 8 weeks of radiation every day and 8 weeks of chemotherapy once a week will give her a 45% chance of a cure. The idea of no drastic surgery has my Mother feeling so much better already.

The other good news was what looked like cancer in her cheek bone is only the tumor protruding into the bone, not growing in it.

Now I'm going to drop a bomb in my tub!

True Colors, learning styles and a proposition for Rick....

Today at work I had two informative classes.

The first one was figuring out what type of environment you learn best in and how to adapt to it. It was interesting. I'm a visual/kinesthetic learner. I got a zero in auditory learning. I'm the type that will take something out of a box and not read instructions and figure it out hands on. Cue cards, graphs and video are supposed to help me learn faster.

It was pretty dead on to how I have learned things easier my whole life. A classic style lecture class puts me to sleep. I had a few of those in college and learned more on my own than in class. I made perfect grades on anything with a lab and I got perfect grades in classes that I made cue cards to learn the material.

The next one was about what type of personality you have/how you are perceived. True Colors. I'm a green with a close blue second. I talked Rick into coming to it. It was really informative and I learned more about how to avoid conflict by knowing how to interact with the other types of personalities and what they need and how they look at themselves.

Poor Rick, he thought it was going to be a lecture and he would sit there and listen. It was a little more interactive. He was the greedy orange eater in a little "play" up on stage. It was just a little skit to see how easy it is to mediate a conflict and come to a resolution.

The other part that was funny was when we introduced ourselves. A tissue box was passed around and people took one or a few. So when it was your turn to intro you had to tell one thing about yourself for every tissue you took.

Rick took 3 and mentioned he likes the mountains, flyfishing and something about his job. Then it got over to the other side of the room and this one lady said "I want my tissue to stand for a quesion" "I want to know if Rick is married, I love fly fishing and the mountains".

Everyone that knew me looked right at me like they were expecting me to say "why yes, yes he is" or something like that. Later we all got a kick out of it.

I'm wore out-I left the house at 8AM and got in about 10PM. I'm glad tomorrow is friday!! I hope everyone has a great day.

Another addition to the family...

This friday I'm picking up Taylor from my ex. Taylor is an american foxhound and very well behaved. I think I posted a picture of him awhile back. I'll take some new ones of him when he gets here.



He was a stray pound puppy-he looked pitiful when I saw him that day. He was hunkered down at the back of the cage shivvering and whining until he saw me and then he ran up to the bars, sat down and put his paw up-it was love at first sight.

Randy knows him and tolerates him like he does Petey. Taylor loves to play around so I'll bet Petey will have a blast-Randy won't play with him since he is older.

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself - Josh Billings

I hope everyone had a good day-the weekend is almost here!

It finally felt like spring today...

Today was a long day at work but when I got home Rick had dinner going on the grill outside as a surprise. It was funny, on the way home I stopped and got a key lime pie just for the heck of it, so we had a pretty good dinner.

Another surprise was when a friend from work dropped off some fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies and some milk. She has said she was going to go home and bake cookies and drop them off on my porch-but I thought she was kidding since she made a comment about feeling domestic today! It was a nice surprise.

The weather was nice today and it finally felt like spring-Rick took these pictures of the red bud tree, apple tree and tulips in bloom:









I hope everyone had a great day :)

Catching up....

Today was my day to catch up on some housework. Vacuuming, laundry, dusting-all that fun stuff. So I thought I would catch up on here too.

This weekend was good. I relaxed around the house, Rick did some yardwork and I watched a couple of movies. I also went to the movies with a friend of mine. We saw Sin City. I kinda liked it, but everyone else I have talked to that has seen it didn't really care for it because of the dialogue/overacting/gore/violence. Keeping with that theme, Rick and I watched Saw this weekend.

I splurged and bought a new wireless keyboard and mouse this weekend. It took a bit of doing to hook it up but I finally got it going. I didn't notice on the box it said for Windows XP only. I found some drivers on the web that work with them so I didn't have to take it back.

Work has been going good. I have been working with a new software program and have been entering data going back to October. It will occupying my time for awhile!

My parents are still upbeat about the appointment they have with a radiologist this week. They are doing the paperwork to get everything started with them.

I talked to my Dad earlier today and found out that my brother is moving back home. This worries and angers me all at once. I haven't spoken to my brother in about 8 years and still don't intend to when/if he moves back.

He is 45 and has never thought of anyone but himself. He married at 17 and has since been married 4 times and at the last count has over 15 kids. He left each one when things got too hard to handle-never taking care of them or the kids that were left behind. He is planning on leaving his current wife with 2 kids because it's too much for him.

I respect their wishes to let him come back home to get back on his feet, and I know they love him as their son. I know they would do the same for me or my sister. But I worry that he sees my parents in a vulnerable state and may try to take advantage of them-that is who he has been in the past that made me lose all respect for him.

I know that my Dad won't let him have but one chance before he would make him leave, but it angers me that they are going to have to deal with this on top of everything else. Me and my sister are hoping that his heart is in the right place and that he will help instead of hurt them-but we keep reminding ourselves of those 15+ children out there that thought the same at one point.

A busy week...

This week at work has been busier than normal. I have many reports to compile and end of last month progress sheets to input. I get to work and type away until it is time to leave!! It's not really that bad, the other day we had a press conference at the county courthouse and I was on T.V.

My dad calls afterwards and says "I just saw the second most handsome man on television!" When I ask who is the first-he says "why of course, me."

I want to thank everyone again for your nice comments regarding what is going on with my Mom. I had one of those fate moments last Saturday. I volunteered to sign up latecomers at our fund raising walk/run we had at work. The other lady that signed up for the same duty happened to be extremely nice and the doctor/patient liaison at our cancer center.

She told me to have my parents call her and she would help. My Dad called her today and she was really helpful to them-they have an appointment to see her next Monday. It turns out that my Parents doctor who told them they had to go to Houston was wrong. Everything that can be done there, can be done here as well. She also offered them many more options that they weren't told of while in Houston.

I could tell the difference in their mood since then. He was really happy that the lady made it a point to tell them that she is calling their doctor to explain to him that people don't have to spend hundreds of dollars for nothing, they can stay here. My Dad told her to hit him with both barrels!

Other than work and trying to get a few things done around the house I haven't been up to very much.

I found a nifty way to catalog all of my books-something I have been wanting to do but didn't want to manually enter all the info. With a bar code reader and software from readerware.com you just scan the ISBN number and it transfers the books information into your database. I spent about an hour last night scanning away-I got about 100 in. Their software also catalogs vhs, dvd and music cd's the same way. If you don't have a bar code reader, they send one free when you buy the software.

Tonight was Rick's fathers 70th birthday and we had a surprise party at a restaurant. It was fun. We all ate way too much, and then had some cake!

I hope everyone has a great weekend-and thanks again for all the support and kind words-it means a lot to me. I apologize for not keeping up with my journal reading lately, I'll try to catch up with everyone this weekend :) Jeff

All at once

It seems this weekend everything happened at once and overwhelmed me.

I finally got to talk to my Dad about my Mom. She decided against having the surgery after the doctor gave her all the details. I won't go in to the graphic details but he said she would never look or sound the same. It would be 2 years before she would be able to eat, swallow or live live without pain. It would be 2 years before she could even start to try to talk again.

The doctor said that without surgery she would start feeling pain in about 2 months and it wouldn't be long after that everything would start swelling and start getting unbearable.

For some reason my Dad decided this was the right time to tell me something I never knew about my Mom's Mother. I knew she had had cancer and had died from it the day after Christmas when I was so young that I only remember seeing her once. I didn't know that she had a surgery and for the next few years lived in excruciating pain and finally either accidentally or purposely overdosed on the pain medication.

I know that is going through my Mom's mind right now and my Dad thinks that is what she will end up doing. He has talked to her until he was blue in the face but cannot convince her to do the surgery. He finally told me he has resigned to the fact that she won't have it and has decided to abide by her wishes and just be there for her.

After thinking about it over the weekend I decided that is all I can do-respect her wishes and be there for her whatever happens. Saturday we got into an argument about it which left me feeling horrible for arguing with her-she started crying and we sorta made up. She thanked me for watching Corky and we said our see you laters.

I wanted to thank everyone who emailed or left good wishes by a comment. It means a lot to me.

For whatever reason Rick decided to be a terror this weekend which didn't help my frame of mind in the least. I usually try to be amicable and ignore his BS but this weekend it flew all over me and I was quick to respond in kind.

I overslept today and wasn't able to finish my computer work I do at home. It was my fault for going out last night and swilling martinis or as I call them "a snack of olives floating in vodka". I just felt like I needed to cut loose last night and forget things at least for a couple of hours.

I'm not in the mood for work this week, not because I'm not enjoying working there but because I just want to crawl into bed and pull the covers over my head for awhile. I guess when my alarm goes off too early as usual, I will just get up and do it and pretend like I'm a responsible adult!

I hope everyone has a great Monday.