Stupid People *snicker*

I think I need to take a break from Facebook for a while... I am so tired of seeing sound clips that try to sum up the worlds problems and how we should view them in a single line. I'm sorry, no real problem is simple enough to sum up that way. There are always two sides to every story and completely ignoring one of them for convenience is absurd.

I'm great with people disagreeing with me if they can remain civil while we disagree, however during an election year that's a pretty darned rare thing. I don't usually comment on political posts online for just that reason, I'm tired of the ad hominim attacks and people insisting that I don't know what I'm talking about. I happened to foolishly try to disagree on FB today and because it's been so long since someone online has attacked me it really made me mad.

I am not stupid. Yes, I don't know everything... so teach me! Don't tell me to take a class or read a book, cause honestly I'm not going to do that when "you" are being a complete ass about it. In fact, your insistance on it make me LESS likely to do as you suggest because I'm stubborn like that and hate to feel forced into anything.

Grrrr.

George Washington didn't want the American people to section themselves into an "us" and "them" because he felt it would be the downfall of the nation. He was mostly talking about political parties. As a watch how people treat others who disagree with them I have to agree with him... the divisiveness will be the downfall of our nation. We are killing our national spirit from within.

Let see how good I am about staying away from FB for a while... LOL.

Here's some pictures just for fun... cause I felt the post needed some, but didn't have anything that really went along :)

Turbo after he discovered how to take pictures of himself on my Ipod.

Not much

Today was pretty chill and uneventful so I give you this:

it's a picture taken of Jer and Turbo on June 30th (when my parents town did their fireworks, and so we celebrated then). I have to say... I really like this picture, and if you don't.... well. You can suck it!!! :D

Treasure Hunting

I don't know about you, but my kids... they love video games and electronics! They love the Wii, and the PS3, and the 3DS, and the Ipod, and the computer, and anything else with buttons and a blinky screen ... even legos are more exciting than outside! And this is good in the case of not being left behind by technology and hand-eye coordination, BUT, well... lets just say it's not so good for getting out in the sun and exercising. 

It's summer darnit! They need to ride their bike, and run around, and play tag in the backyard, and draw all over the driveway in chalk! I don't expect them to do these types of things every day, but I don't expect a fight when I suggest them (or, let's be honest, when I INSIST that they get OUTSIDE for a change). 

Sooooo I asked my sis (who has amazingly active kiddos) what she would suggest because, honestly, I need to get out too and I would eventually like to end up hiking and backpacking overnight with the family! but there is no hope of this if they continue to be squirmy about any bug (oh. my. goodness. It's a teeny tiny FLY! It won't hurt you!) and about slight variations in temperature! her suggestion?

Geocaching.

I tried it with just my kids a few weeks ago but didn't have much luck. We found the Geocache... I just didn't have luck with the complainy-ness of the kidlets. "It's hoooooottttt" (it was warm but geesh, we were only outside for about 20 minutes!), "My legs are tired!" (after walking one block in a subdivision?), "I have to pee!" (We've only been gone from the house for 3 minutes!!!). Mind you this was all from ONE child. Grrrrr.

So I let it slide for a while. 

Then yesterday, as I was babysitting the 5 extra kiddos, I needed to go pick up one of them from summer school. The other kids wanted to go to a park. So, I thought... hmmm I know of a park with a couple of Geocaches, maybe I can attempt to find one while we are there! After picking up #5 we headed to the park.

Needless to say, all 5 kiddos (mine were at home with dad) seemed to really enjoy it! "Are there any more around here?!" Why, yes!  In fact there is another in THIS park! So off we went. We tried 3 and only found 2, but most of the kids found it fun. 

So today when we picked up #5 again we took a vote and the majority of the kids wanted to go again (this included my kiddos)... so we did! And even the 2 kids that weren't too excited about going ended up getting out of the A/C'd van and helping us search. So they can't hate it THAT much, right?! 

One of the kids really wanted to continue when all the others were done so I made him a deal... I'll be going by tomorrow (when I'm not babysitting) and pick him, and whoever else wants to go, up to go look for another Geocache. :D 

At very least I'm getting the kiddos all out of the house, so I consider that at least a small win!

The "More on that later"

I don't know how much everyone knows, but last school year I was working as a lunch lady/classroom assistant. Lunch lady at one charter school that provided lunch to another charter school and then when I was done with that I would go and assist at the second charter school until I got to go to my college classes in the afternoon/evening.

This was good and bad. Good because I worked where my kids were and Turbo could get all day preschool without a fee because I was staff, bad because of the drama between the two schools and because I was on two time cards which meant no benefits even though I was working a lot.

This summer I was supposed to work for the Summer Lunch Program that some schools offer to the community (kids 1-18 get lunch free) like I did last summer, but unfortunately there was some passive aggressiveness crap and my boss at the first charter school forgot/didn't have time to file the paperwork. Yah.... right. I am suspicious about that, but it does me no good to focus on it. Never-the-less I thought I had a summer job until about 2 weeks before "summer" which left me high and dry for finding most seasonal jobs. 

What sucks is that I really needed that job to help make it through the summer. Yes, I don't have a rent/mortgage but I still have debt that came about in various ways... some avoidable and some not (like living until Jer got a job last summer) and also the van payment and the cell phone bill etc. along with the "holy crap I didn't realize how worn out Turbo's shoes were!" and the "I didn't realize that the kids outgrew almost ALL of their summer clothes from last year!" stuff. 

So stressed as I was, finding a job that I could somehow work with watching my kids (because Jer was most likely to be available in the mornings, but then got a promotion ---YEAH!!!--- which meant more regular hours, ie not midnight, but also meant that he wouldn't be around to watch the kiddos who were out of school and who we couldn't afford to pay someone to watch.) and pay me ... because that was needed.... was NOT looking likely. 

Until one of Jer's friends happened to call and talk to him about a money making idea (trying not to be snarky... I don't like my friends trying to sell stuff to me and am always highly suspicious of it) and happened to ask what was up with us. Jer mentioned that he was working at Maverik and that I was home with the kids for the summer... and then his friend asked if I would be willing to watch he and his new wife's kids for them while they worked! :D 

I jumped at it. I could bring my kids, sometimes I would have up to 5 kids (all not my own) to watch, but sometimes less (all the kids are from previous marriages) and it would help us make ends meet!!! 

So now I'm babysitting and watching (can't babysit your own kids, right!?) up to 8 kids during the day and for the most part it is going alright. I am thankful to be able to make ends meet... hopefully... at least until the end of summer when I will only have one of my two jobs to go back to :\ 

Oh, well... we will jump that hurdle when it gets here. 

Hi Der.

Hi.
  I know it's been a really long time since I really blogged. This is for many reasons, not the least of which was/is the fact that when life is hard... well, quite honestly, it's really difficult not to be a Negative Nancy and complain about everything.
  Yes, we are still living with my in-laws, no I'm not very happy about it, yes we have been trying, and yes people who blame those who find themselves in unfortunate circumstances for those circumstances... well, lets just say I want to smack them.
  I'm going to try to start blogging regularly again, mostly due the sinking feeling that by not sharing who I am (ie full of opinions etc) I'm slowly loosing who I am and it really isn't helping with my depression or our life situation.

  So I'll start out easy :D

  My parents took myself and my kids camping this last weekend!!! Unfortunately Jer couldn't go due to work and we missed him, but it was so nice to get out and just forget things for a while. We went to a beautiful place in the mountains in Wyoming. I don't think I could have imagined a place that was more picturesque. Here... let me prove it.

Nope, that's not a painting, and yes we did camp right next to the lake. My dad brought his little boat and took my children fishing (the caught fish!!!),

 and we took a short hike to another lake that was close by too. While one of my children was complainy about it, I think in the end they enjoyed it (which is good... cause honestly I'm thinking hiking is going to be inflicted upon them more often :D

it was a much needed break to say the least!!! If life would have permitted I would have stayed there much longer ignoring it. But alas we came home last night (and unfortunately my kids weren't the best ever on the way home and we ended up with some groundings.... sigh.)

Well, time to get back to trying to make ends meet... the kids I have been watching should be here soon (more on that later).

~April

Camera

So here is "One" good thing! I took my Camera over to Best Buy (the place I bought it) and the dude clicked a few buttons, reset all the settings... and said "take it home and see if that fixes it."

Looks like maybe it did :D Yay for not having to spend 5 billion dollars just to have it looked it! I guess the real test will be after a take a few more pictures to see if it continues to at least take decent pictures. Here's to hoping!

Update:

Yup, definitely better!  Glad it was just a software issue! :D BTW this is Goober weeding grandma's flower bed to earn some moola.... he wants to buy the new Lego Harry Potter game. :D

Update

Hi All, I haven't posted in a very long time... partially because I didn't know much I could post without offending those that I really really don't want to offend, while at the same time being authentic to myself. So I just stopped posting. Time to update though.

The summer was hard, but that isn't really news. We are still living with my in-laws, which is a huge help yet still very hard. Our marriage had some bumps. I worked the community lunches at our school (it's a federal program that provides free lunches to people under 18 years old for free) with my friend Nari. It helped to be able to have some kind of income until school started and it was a good preparation for when school actually started. We didn't venture any farther than thiry minutes away because we simply couldn't afford it.

The highlight of my summer? Well, that would have to have been the massage that I was able to get in June. I had given my dad a gift certificate for Christmas that he was not going to be able to take advantage of so he returned it to me so that I could use it. It was fabulous :)

School started on August 15th for Turbo (Preschool) and on August 18th for Missy and Goober. Because I'm an assistant at the school now I don't have to pay tuition for Turbo and he gets to stay all day until the other kids get out of school... which is a godsend because otherwise he would not be getting preschool due to cost and having him there until after school also makes me working more doable if Jer is able to find a job.

Oh, I can't remember if I updated on that or not. Jer found a job for a short time with a construction company that required that he live in Colorado until Sept. We tried it. It didn't work so well. So he came home and is now looking for a job again.

Anyways, back to me working. Right now I work for the charter school who provides our school with lunches. In the morning I get the number for lunches then prepare them and deliver and serve them to our school. After lunch I switch to assisting at the kids school until school gets out and then I switch back into lunch lady mode to input lunch balances, input figures into the computer, make reports (both daily and monthly), distribute fruits or vegetables to the classes for the Fruit and Vegetable Grant that our school got, and count the milk in the kindergarten room so that I can restock in the next morning for the Kindergarten Milk Snack Program. Then some days I switch modes again to PFA (remember that? It's like the PTO) President to do meetings for that etc.

Needless to say I spend a lot of time at the school and doing school type stuff.

The last couple of weeks were hard. Really hard. There wasn't enough time in the day to do everything that needed to be done for lunches (making lunch cards etc), the computer program at the school wasn't working right (the orders were not coming in on time or were not able to be input), the school changed the lunch schedule on me without letting me know (well, actually that was more the teachers than the school...), and then I had a teacher argue with me about how a student didn't get her lunch ordered and how that was somehow now my problem... oh, and did I mention that this was in front of at least 15 students while I was serving lunch? Then there was my assisting job that simply wasn't happening for a while... and the poor teacher that was putting up with it and my feeling like a failure in that department. Yeah. It was a swell week.

On top of that I came home to a house that was not mine, that my sister in law decided to stay at for the week as well, and that I have no personal private space in (though, don't get me wrong, I'm very VERY grateful to have a space to live at all... it's just really hard) and that I seem to be constantly offending someone in some way in...

Well, you get the point.

I miss feeling at home basically.

Now things are starting to chill out a little with school. I'm starting to get into a routine at least somewhat. I need to take a test for Math and English skills with the college sometime this month because I will be starting classes in January and need to register in October for those and hopefully Jer will get this job that he has applied for and passed a couple of screenings on.

So, that is the update. It's not very cheerful... but it is what it is. And I really am not trying to complain, but it's hard to say "life is hard" without sounding whiny. I'm just trying my best to buckle down and somehow do everything that I need to do to get through this. I can say that I'm very grateful that I have a loving and kind husband who doesn't moan about being a stay at home dad and running all sorts of errands etc for me, that put up with my long hours for those couple of weeks (hopefully these next few weeks will be a little less), and that is a really good dad. I know this is hard on him too, and I'm certain that at times I make things worse even when I don't mean to.

Our kids are clothed and have food and beds to sleep in and they have good teachers, I have a job that I can at least potentially leave when the kids get out for he day and that I can do partially from home if needed (at least the paperwork). I'm grateful for my in-laws and their generousity in putting up with us and for my parents and their generosity in trying to help us with letting the kids do fun things like dance class for Missy, going camping, and taking them sometimes so that we can get some time to wind down. I'm thankful for understanding friends who realize that I don't feel comfortable inviting them over socially unless I ask my in-laws first and who also understand that I also am reluctant to invite my children's friends from school over ... because, again, it isn't our house.

I'm grateful that our renters have paid their rent (so far) even if they are a little flaky and do pay late. I hope that we don't have to evict them for not paying certain utilities... but if we do... well, maybe Jer will get that job, eh? And maybe we could move back into our own house... maybe, but I'm not counting on it... Wishful thinking, eh? Well, you have to hope for something... right?

PS. My camera is having issues as well, so sorry... no pictures. Fuzzy fuzzness is not fun to look at lol