Ayn's Multiple World

Draggin at our normal pace - but moving on!

Good morning. This is me and we’re reporting in from our office. It’s 8:30 am and we’ve got the day primarily off. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do some work – it’s just that today the group leaves for the Christmas party in a half hour. It is with other individuals served through developmental disabilities. They are meeting at a VFW and there will be lots of food, dancing, gifts and a chance to meet Santa. They have a blast at this event. I think it’s their favorite all year. Rosa the secretary and I stay home and Margarita still has to bring the work people to work, but other than that everyone goes to the event. It’s nice and relaxing for us “two” who stay at home. I’ll check in on Rosa to make sure she’s covered for lunch, but other than that we’ll be pretty much on our own today.

Ahh, we just turned on a little music. We’d seen the video of Ame and Isa at the soccer match and now we’re setting ourselves up to be in a good mood. *Sigh*
Well, there was something else first. Rich and I were home last night. I got there first and he came in after shopping. He only picked up a few bags so he wasn’t out too long. We had finished up the turkey soup, and he made himself steak and rice.

Good Rich! No not for any particular reason … just he’s a GOOD Rich. 

We settled back after he came in the living room to watch a couple of shows. We’re pretty much into every night watching West Wing from the DVR. It’s nice – Oh and we watched a special on Sarah Brightman that Rich had recorded for us. That was nice too, but by then I was worried over him. He had gotten a call while we were watching the first West Wing. It turned out to be his daughter.

We missed the first part, but had heard from the living room to the bedroom where he was the tone of his voice. I could tell he was having problem with someone. The rest of the conversation I lay on his bed trying to understand what was happening.

Pretty much Jill was accusing her father of all kinds of things … most were slightly on, slightly off. She says that she talks to her mother each night and the mother cries. I wish that she’d get some help so that she didn’t put so much on her kids, but I guess that’s the way the family works. I think it’s harder on the kids, because they have their own problems with Rich and my relationship, but then they have to be taking care of an often hysterical mother. She seems to want to blame the relationship problems she’s been having with Rich for over 20 years on Rich. I don’t know how much responsibility she’s taking for her relationship issues.

She’s telling the kids that we’ve been together for 20 years and she is holding that Joe is Rich’s child. I feel like this involves me somewhat, but for the most part I’m just here to back up Rich. It’s obviously incorrect on both accounts. We’ve been together for 15 years and Joe is my third son born to the ex. Joe is soon going to be 25 so that puts the whole situation 10 years incorrect. Mostly though - it seems that Rich doesn’t want to go into explaining my life to the kids and likewise through them to his wife. It’s been a year and a half, and the situation just gets more negative. I think it will be a lot better after the divorce. Then they will be able to put some of it to rest and some of the legal blackmail of her to him will be over. I think in some ways she’s always riled up and at other times I think she gets riled up to maintain a state of dependency whether it is to the kids or Rich.

The kids I think are most upset because Rich isn’t giving them any details. They like to think of this as lying to them, and in some ways it is, but Rich has a personal life that doesn’t involve them directly. He’s always given them the best he can … the problem was with the relationship with the wife. They didn’t get along and kept cohabitating anyway. You know over the years my feelings toward this. I look forward to a time that it is over. I don’t mean any ill-health to her, but there’s got to be some time when things just get on. As long as she’s holding just Rich responsible, she’ll have no control over her life. This is because she’s insisting at this point that Rich has all the control.

I wish that Rich could be more straightforward with them. It’s helped me in my own relationship to my kids, but it makes a difference to that they’ve had time to think things through where this is all relatively new to Rich’s kids. The boys have known for at least 10 years – although it wasn’t until just before Thom’s graduation from boot camp that they actually met. *Sigh*

I don’t remember all the things Jill laid on her Dad … I wasn’t part of the conversation. I heard Rich being defensive and trying to calm her down. I remember him saying … you have it you have it all down you guessed everything correctly.

But, this was after he tried to tell her her “facts” were incorrect. She wanted it seemed for things to be as her mother had put them together for her. She went back to a situation that had happened over 10 years ago. It was a night I’d worked til after midnight at the center and then got off on the wrong stop. I was deserted without any money and I still had the kids at home and I panicked and called Rich to tell him what had happened. It was a call from a confused employee who had spent too much time working to be sensible. But, this situation is one that the wife is grasping at as if it could give her some answers. She’s building her own mythology and selling it to the kids as fact, but she doesn’t know.

Also there is a situation for a while where Rich paid me to do some work for him with mailings and whatever. He had had another woman doing the work too. The wife wants to think this was for something different than it was. It was very short-lived because I was too frustrated with the work. I don’t know the problem with the other lady … it’s long since been forgotten. They seem to be looking for proof that Rich has done something wrong other than loving someone the family hasn’t known about – yes and he did this while being married. But, then too … on my side it’s been 15 years of accommodating his family in him going home every night and in knowing not knowing what was happening and how it affected Rich especially. He’s been hurt so many times and so often.

I asked him last night if he held regrets that we’d been intimate friends for so long. He tells me something he’s told me before – that I made those years bearable. I hope I’ve been better for him than the harm to his family. But, I can’t feel overly guilty for them not knowing the better side of Rich that I see.

They’ve not even appreciated all the time that he’s put everything into providing for them. I feel good in all these years to have had my own income and taken care of my own expenses. That part was laid out clearly from the start – I would have to be financially independent. I don’t know how that happens now in that I have dreams of being in the house with Rich. But, too that part is just my dream right now.

I think the family wants to claim they have control over how Rich spends his money … so that even when he bought the boat AFTER paying for the wife’s expenses and various expenses of the kids – they want to make that out as doing something wrong.

But, they aren’t seeing that they’ve taken away almost everything he owns. The house is not a place he can be, the new car she just bought and most of his things have been left behind or sold by his son and yet the wife comes to him for Christmas money to spend on the kids. Where is her commitment toward them? Rich is the kind of guy though that will always do more than his share. I think he appreciates that she shops for them and he wants them to have nice things. I think she also shops for herself and I see she always shops for her friends on their special occasions.

Maybe this is hard-felt in that I don’t have the same options, but I am proud of the money that I’ve found through my working that I can give to the boys. Rich is not a part of that though. I guess I see often that what seems fair isn’t always. Not that I receive, but that she keeps asking instead of standing independently. It’s very frustrating to me in that I feel Rich is being taken to the cleaners.

Ok, ok … recognizing I’m in a mood. When the family harasses him, then I feel harassed. It’s Rich choice not to give them a fuller picture, so I would imagine that it to be human nature they all guess. But, I too wonder over their concern for the father. I think they realize that he loves them, but that they don’t understand him? This has been going on for 20 years! He helps them, but no one seems to have helped him. He helped himself through his relationship with me. Now they all figure that that is there business rather than the business between him and me. I think they have a right to know that we are living together, but as long as they keep over-exciting themselves then it’s really of no benefit to any of them. They want information that is private and not necessary.

I can see that they are curious, but then they use the information against Rich and they use the information to build up their own dramas, which worsens the situation.

If I were to say anything, what would it be? I guess it would be a comment to Rich. I would like for him to know that the family doesn’t have a right to personal information that he isn’t ready to give. They are now going through a forcing period, which is breaking his heart. They want information he doesn’t want to be giving. It’s like they have some ownership rights that I don’t believe they have.

They should be working more on a direct relationship with him. They should be developing a sense of boundaries. There should be information shared, but only with what both parties are willing to share … no forcing by acting out, and then acting out because as Rich has told him they are not ready for the information. They want control, but then it falls back on him. Sometimes I think … they just want the role of being victims. But, I think that comes mostly from the mother.

Obviously, this is a lot said for someone who isn’t supposed to be having an opinion, but I have to admit that I have one. I feel protective of Rich. I’ve lived through his hurt and frustration all these years. I’ve done the work to have a good relationship with him. I really believe that this is what is going to help Rich the most. He’s going to have to realize too though that he deserves more than the anger that continues to be piled on top of his head. Don’t they have some responsibility to take care of their feelings on their own? Why is it that they feel it’s ok to transfer all their anger on Rich? At some point, they will have to appreciate him for being the person he is – no more, no less.

*Sigh*

Ok, we’ve got to get past this for now. There’s not anything we can do right now.

We continue being the person Rich talks too when things are too much, but we realize too that Rich holds a lot inside himself and in that way suffers privately. I know he wants more than anything to help his kids, but they too are adults and have those options to act out the roles. They have to at some point look at their father as humanly. He was put off for 2 decades of a relationship to her, and now she wants people to feel sorry for her lack of effort in developing a relationship that wasn’t more than greed. I just don’t get it.

Ok, time to go somewhere else. I was doing something yesterday that caused me to have a picture of Joe and me up on the screen. This makes me feel better.



Maybe it’s a good time to say … I appreciate the relationship I have with my own children. Rich isn’t interested in marriage so in that respect, I will never be a step-mother. I don’t expect that Rich’s kids are ever going to accept me. That’s not one of the variables here. I do want Rich to be happy and I’d like it to be when he’s thinking or being with his family. Think it’s going to need being a situation though where he’s not held hostage for being honest. There shouldn’t be that kind of punishment factor.

Ok ok ok … not going somewhere else very fast are we. Let’s see what else should we be thinking about?

Oh man … that was good! We used the washroom and we checked out the fridge and sure enough there was some pumpkin pie left in there! WooHOO!! Tasty!

Ok, next subject? Are we back to the house? We haven’t had thoughts on that dream yet this morning. Where did we leave it? Rich has let me be with it by myself for a few days. He did say something a little grumpy when he came into the living room last night with his dinner and I was at the computer. We told him that we were just waiting for him … he be the sweetie bear person. Uh huh … that be it!

Hmm, we just finished reading the section we added yesterday after getting to work.

I think we lost ourselves in the upstairs library. Pretty much we figured we’d write out a few ideas and then we sent it on to carpenter builders out in the area.

This is what we said.



I'm interested in getting an estimate for the cost of converting a bedroom into a library loft on a home that has not been purchased or constructed. We need the estimate before we can settle our finances on the project.

The room in question is Bedroom #4 (See attached). It is on the east side of a two-story family room. There is a fireplace on the NE corner of the family room. The walls to Bedroom #4/Libary are 11'7" x 13'5". I would like the wall on the west side to be opened up with railings/spindles overlooking the family room. If possible I would like to build in a bench seat on the west side behind the spindles and under the back windows on the North wall. I am imagining this bench to be approximately 24" high and 12" wide and that it should have a shelf under the seat to hold two shelves of books.

The South wall is a closet which is fine, but on the East wall I would like shelves 7'-8' high along the entire wall (13'5"). This is the tricky part ... I would like 2 sets of 24" (double-sided shelves) x 7'-8' high x approx 5-6' extended into the room with even spaces between the North bench wall (12") and closet for accessing the shelves. I figure this to be about 3 ' between each shelving unit. When I did the
math ... it seemed I would be then looking at about a total of 300' of book space.

I want the ends of the 2 shorter sets of bookshelves to have enough walking space to be comfortable to the west side bench seat. I'm thinking here of placing a couple of stools or wicker chairs to cap off the short shelves. I would like to be given high/low options as to shelving between wood or other. I would like the wood to be stained cherry to match the kitchen cabinets which are open to the west side of the family room.

Could you please email me a general idea of the cost? The model we are thinking of purchasing is a Pulte home - Buckingham model (3,175 sq ft) located in Oswego on Wolf and Harvey - Prescott Mills Highland. The sales people say that they cannot have their builders complete extra requests because of the number and speed of buildings being built.

Thanks very much.

Ok, we’re back. Again that’s the project we lost track on … we sent it to about 10 builders. A few were no longer in business or at least were using the same email address. It went out late yesterday afternoon and there have been no responses back yet. I don’t know if it’s because it takes time or if the project was just a little too weirdly put together. I know that if I did get someone … answering back now would make a difference. If none of the 10 responds, I know that it was too far-fetched a request. We’ll see.

There was a starting point with the house in walking around it with Rich that I wanted to mention. That was at the end of the tour. He reminded me that we were going to show him the basement. Wow! That be a shame to have forgotten that! I wasn’t sure what he was thinking at first because it took him a while to respond, but after a while he started turning it over in his head. It is a very large basement and very clean. The ceilings are high and it has a great new water heater and furnace – oh, and the bathroom is roughed in.

Mostly, the conversation was more internal to Rich. He named the part of the basement though that would be for storage, and then he talked for a few minutes on fishing -that’s about when we went back to the conversation that we might want a walk-in basement. I’m pretty sure there would be a lot of fishy stuff. I don’t see Rich as having much of a workbench, but in the days of our family that would have been necessary. Of course the laundry is upstairs so that part is nice, but lots of room to build. You could do storage and have 3 very big 20 foot rooms. I don’t know about doing that project yet though. It would depend on usage over time. The thing is that it lit up his eyes. We already told him that if we got shelves built in the library, that the old bookshelves could be used for some of his fishy supplies. It be a nice corner of the house.

I can’t get over the thoughts now though of Rich wanting time where we were together when in the house. I think this is a left over from his marriage where there was a Rich family room and a wife living room, and then two separate bedrooms. I think he liked the idea that our offices would be together and even the library would be open so that we’d have some sense of each other if one was using the space. I don’t know when it became like that for us, but I think now back to the old days when he was just stopping by. We didn’t use the TV for most of those years, we just cuddled and cuddled. Maybe we would eat or take a shower, but then the time was spent between the bedroom or the living room. Most often we’d be massaging him. I think those times were very special to the both of us and I’m glad when that continues now as well, though more often the TV is playing in the background. I know I watch more TV now then I would have on my own, but then it is the cozy time with Rich that we love.

I see it happening more at the new house than the old. Mostly, I see the routines of us getting up in the morning and each of us getting ready. I could see us both dressed and ready to go before we went downstairs. I do see having a coffee pot set to start on a timer. Yup that be the way. After that we’d come downstairs and most likely turn on the computers. I’d have to settle with the part of news being on in the background – next room over while we were doing our writing. Rich likes to check his email. And, of course there would have to be some excuse to be in the kitchen. Most likely it would be there that I be taking my medicine yet and packing a bag when necessary … that is at least other than the stuff I’d be gathering to working at home.

I could see there being some morning routines like emptying the dishwasher and folding clothes … maybe a couple minutes heat and tumble and then we’d hang them up or fold them and then take them upstairs before we get into our work routines. I would like other habits too like washing sheets often and always going to bed before it got too late so that we could pick up the family room first. I would like to see a nice neat room when I came down in the morning. Hmm, there’d be routines too, I think we mentioned this before, but there would be routines where we travelled through the house shutting blinds or curtains or opening them.

Hmm, one other thing that be routine … well a couple. There’d be routines around the boat usage during the season, and there’d be routines of getting clothes to the cleaner or groceries and lawn care. Rich said something about having a maid and someone to do the lawn. We said weakly that we could do some of the work, but then thought don’t say too much, because he’s right … we’d need a made to help out at least the once a month, or maybe we would have a maid service that had a team come in and get through the hard stuff. Sweet!

Hmm, it’s a while later now – about 11:30 am. We just did some checking around on mortgages a bit and about people complaining about Pulte as a builder or mortgage broker. There wasn’t very much though and the records were primarily before 2008.

Have to hold that with a grain of salt.

Ok, now it’s 12:48 … there were a few calls I had to take care of … some site I was at was hooked up into having people call you about mortgages. I’m pretty sure I don’t qualify for much … most likely they said about 200-220,000. I’m not interested though and I cannot connect Rich’s name to anything. From the last guy it seemed that if we had about half of Rich’s income – the other half going to exwife, and my income, we might have enough for the house we want. But, I’m afraid I’m building up our hopes. We really got to a stop place in our minds when we found that the options that we wanted would bring the house up an additional $75,000. I think that puts a 30 year mortgage to about $2200-2600. That’s not really bad, but Rich has always foreseen paying off the mortgage before he retires. This would take a whole lot of additional conversation.

The last guy was talking about some new tax incentive that would be deducted in your income taxes, but it’s just for first time buyers or at least people who haven’t owned houses in 3 years. AND, you pay the money back although it’s just $500 for $15 years. There’s a maximum amount of credit $7,500. I think it is meant for people just under $80,000 income. If I were to do it on my own … that be nice, but I’m not so sure of buying some place for only $200,000.

Hmm, looked at another calculator. It looked like we might max out on a $365,000 mortgage over 30 years for $2100 a month – but, that be with both Rich and my incomes. And, if that were the case … I don’t think it would happen … I think Rich means to buy a house on his own. I’d just be paying rent. I’m pretty sure my credit rating would be devastating anyway. Man-o-man this is tough thinking. We also went over a site we’d been to before about writing, but I can’t say too much for it yet. It’s looking like offering too little too late. There were some resources for personal writing, but it was for a cost like $15 per each 8-10 week session. Yeeks! Plus a lot of their resources were for people who write novels.

I’m not so interested in that.

Yikes! The group is back. I walked down there to check it out … It’s 1:15 pm. Sister says it was wall to wall people … there were 250 there. She said everything went well, except one of my clients who found a couple guys she used to like and then was very uncooperative in not doing as asked. Ouch … that’s no good.

Ok, now we’re back to regular worrying? Maybe we should try doing some work for a bit. The mail to National American University went in last night. It might be a while til hearing from them and now I’m wondering even if I got the job, if it would be at an acceptable rate. Just know that I’m thinking it would be worth a try.

Certainly not doing much in this field. Hmm?

Ok, for now … got 2 hours 45 minutes … let’s do something good like Qnotes. C’mon
girl you can do it!

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/02/2008 01:23:00 PM Comments: 0