Ayn's Multiple World

Happy Holiday! Happy Holiday!

Good morning, good morning! It’s me!! Guess what, guess what? We’re officially on vacation! Yup, yup … it’s here! We sorta cheated a little in that we called off going to work today. I think there are enough weather reasons to justify not going in. It’s warmer today at about 17 degrees, but there’s 100% snow and they are saying 3-6” with a mixture of sleet and rain. Those are terrible conditions, plus we had some trouble getting past the parking yesterday at the center because of the deep frozen ruts. We got stuck for a few moments, but finally got out. If there would have been a car in back of me, we’d be in very bad trouble.

As to the situation of the center, we did not get the Qnotes done, but we progressed them. I’ll have to think a little harder on what all we did yesterday, but for the most part … at this point we’re just relieved we’re not there. We had a pretty good idea that we wouldn’t be coming in again today so we picked up the office before we left and made sure everything was closed down proper. We also put some water next to the plant in case Sr. remembers that it will need watering. We did water it before we left.

Hmm, we’re already being sidetracked by our writing project. We combined stuff so that there’s now 192 pages complete. I’m not sure where we left off yesterday, but in general, we’ve decided to write everything together for the first book up to however ever far we get to make about 400 pages. I’ll finish whichever month we’re closest too.

We’re back … it’s now 8:23 am. By now Rich is gone though he’s done a tremendous job in making sure we get out today. He warmed up the car and then he got all the snow and ice off of it and he put windshield wiper fluid in it so my windows were cleaned off. That was a problem yesterday. He’s my hero!

Yesterday toward the end of the day we decided to check out Kinko’s well other printers too, but pretty much went right there because of their online service/pick-up abilities. We were able to download from work an option to file print our material to them as if easy enough just to change my print location. That didn’t work at home last night when we tried it and it flipped us out, but we will cover that later, but the thing is this morning we went back to Kinko’s and tried out another option which turned out to be even better. We just have to upload our file and check out all the different options. We can copy double-sided, print in black and white or color, do all kinds of different quality papers and choose tab and binding options. I’m pretty excited by the service.

We registered so that we’d be ready to go, but I know by yesterday’s work that it’s going to cost about $200 to make 6 copies of about 400 pages. Might be a little more with the tab option, but we’ll have to check that out. We’ve only got about 192 pages prepared to go so we’ll have to now finish up what we need to do for the first book, and then we’ll set things to go. We have options of picking-up or having them deliver, but there pick-ups only about 3 ½ miles away right over by the gym, so we’ll probably go that option. I’m very excited.

We still need to come up with the $200, but we’re excited about how close this project is to completing. We chose 6 copies because it is pretty expensive. It costs about $32.50 for each copy – this is with a front and back vinyl cover and yesterday we were looking at the comb binding option. I tried today and they gave me the spiral option, but I tried binding together something that was only half the pages of what’s going to be the finished product.

So, you probably know what we’re going to be working on next. It looked as if by the choices we were practicing with that we could have it tomorrow or the next day, but I’m not sure how fast the whole thing is. I guess it would depend on how busy they are, but I know they print stuff pretty fast. They even had options for special printing instructions.

I think the trickiest part is that I want a colored front and back cover. I designed that yesterday too. It’s really pretty simple. I have a couple signature pictures. The one is the where there is a bear in a pink housecoat and bunny slippers sitting in front of her computer drinking coffee, and the other is the shot of ourselves that we’d taken thinking of Rich (dark room). We always thought when we get to publishing our first book, that’s the picture that will go on the cover.

There’s one other little picture of a pink heart with a flower inside that says “forget me not.” That’s because well obviously if I’m writing the story of my life … I’m going to hope that the people I’ve given the story too won’t forget me.

This first run there is only six copies. They will be going to Maury, Thom, Joe, Rich, Dr. Marvin and us. Hmm, I forgot I could do this … here is a copy of the front and back covers. 









This is what the first Table of Contents page looks like and then that’s followed by a picture of the first page of the first chapter. Oh man … just so excited here that this is happening … I don’t know why it took this long to do it and why now, but we feel that it’s here and very stimulating.

I keep reviewing just to make sure everything is good. I love that picture of the bear. It really covers our feelings of who we are when we’re here typing away. We figure the bunny slippers bring it all home. If I could find a set in real life, I would purchase them just for posterity. I think at this point, I would use the same covers on all the books, but I would then just change the Book number part and the month/year date on the back. I don’t think that shows a lot of imagination, but it would really convey a sense of how important everything is. It would of course depend on me not changing my mind because there are so many great pictures in life.

We’ll have to see.

I don’t know how many books there are going to be. We’d been thinking 6 books, but now that seems pretty unrealistic, because of the number of pages we write down the line. We do know that it’s going to cost at least $200 each run. It’s going to be very expensive. I don’t know a cheaper way to do things. I’m thinking now of that one publisher we’d checked out before, but I don’t recall how long ago that was and for how much. I’m thinking there was a huge cost but that you’d get like 100 books for $12-1700. I’m pretty sure I could find that again, because I would have saved it in my aol mail, but it’s not worth the time it would take to find it now. One way or another … it would be too much and then too, I would have to worry about them claiming some right to my work.

If one day me, Rich, Dr. Marvin or one of the boys was able to publish this all for profit, then we don’t want strings attached to some other nonsense. I don’t know how life is going to turn out, but I am very happy with how we’ve stuck to this project. I think the only time we let it go was during a few months we were working on school. But, that had pretty much driven us crazy. We couldn’t deal with not being able to write although we’d been thinking between schools and writing it was the lesser priority. Looking back now … we’ve got to admit that writing is what makes us feel good about ourselves. If I’d stuck out school, I would be finishing up now within a couple of months.

If you are reading this and we’re a mad success, then you will know that the writing turned out to be the better deal. If you’re just family reading through …. You’ll know maybe I could have done better with school, but we are happier now that you are here and have made it this far … and if another copy was never published, it would have been enough just to have the few copies to yourself. BUT!!! If you can make a few bucks - do that ok?! Please then split it evenly including adding my grandchildren into the picture. That includes Ame, Isa AND Austin and whoever else might one day come about. Pshwoo. It’s like making a will. I figure the worst would be that it got put on a dusty shelf for a 100 years, and then one of my great, great grandchildren finds it and it becomes a big deal because it was written in the olden days Hehehe.

Hmm, how many times since writing have we gone back to thinking of publishing to a larger audience? There are some things we’ve never figured out. We still don’t have it now. Mainly how do we talk about people and work without getting sued by one of them for breach in privacy. I would really need to talk to a publisher to see how that happens. I guess one way would be to change my name, but there I would believe that if a reporter wanted enough to find us … we’re too all over the place for her not to. I feel strongly that Rich and Dr. Marvin would get as much a break in royalties as the boys because they are the one’s written so much about. But, along that line … I would include St. Rose Center as well. I would want them to have as equal a share as everyone else, because they are so much of the work. I didn’t write a book about St. Rose, but it would have been impossible to write MY story without having included my thoughts from all of that. I think it’s as much of the book as are the parts where we talk about being a multiple.

The one’s I worry most about are Sr. Theresa and Rich’s family. I would like to cover their identities better. I know that the first part of the book, I mention Rich very little and I’ve tried to cover all their names by using false names. I’m not sure when that changed over, but I know that going private with my journal in April 2007 after Rich came to live here, things were really then open to using names. I don’t know if Sr. would be around by the time this becomes published, but I would then give her share to The Daughters of St. Mary’s of Providence. I think they do a tremendous amount for people with so very little monetary reward, that I know they’d contribute their part to worthwhile situations under their care. I don’t have to worry about their CEO’s purchasing jet planes. Hmpf!

Hmm, ok … we’re moving on. What else is important to talk about until we move on to going back to the book?

Rich reminded me of something this morning that should be noted, though I’m not sure of its purpose. Basically, we’d gotten home a little bit in front of him. We ate dinner and went to the computer pretty soon into it. We did of course, like now leave on CNN. I tune in between thoughts somewhat and it seems to do no harm. Like all this morning they’ve been talking about a rescue from a broken water main in Maine. There were rescues taking place of getting people from cars out in baskets flown in by helicopter. I think that sheds a different kind of interest putting the writing in world perspective, but it’s not the main story. UNLESS, of course you were talking about Barack - he’s still up there as one hell of a significant person!

Anyway we’re stray-catting away from our purpose here. We’d been at our computer when Rich came in. He’d done the work thing and then went out to a meeting I believe, and then he figured out he better get his kid’s Christmas shopping done.

Today, I think he’s going to shop for his mother. Rich said he was cutting down this year, but I think this has more to do with his dislike of shopping more than anything else. I haven’t asked him if he gave money to his wife again to shop for the kids. I know this has happened in the past and that she asked for money again this year. I’m really not sure of that whole deal, but we know enough to let it go. It will be his decision either way.

Rich had called before getting in so he knew we ate and that he was going to stop by at the BBQ place. I think he is still going to “Famous Dave’s.” After he put his things down and came out with the dinner we were enmeshed in trying to figure out how to load the Kinko’s program … it was giving us a message about installsomething.exe. Ahh, I remember … installutil.exe. Maybe one of you will eventually tell me what I had to do. The best I could get was that I was to be putting some kind of code in DOS, but since we RARELY mess around in all that. We figured we better let it go. I had gone online and especially checked out the Microsoft downloads, but I couldn’t figure it out. I think I did do something because for a bit we were into DOS and now if I let my screen go … it brings us out to a screen that opens the program and says Garvey and it’s got the butterfly. It doesn’t ask for a password. I like better when strange things don’t happen, but I can live with this one.

Because we were having so much trouble and indeed DIDN’T get things figured out we were in quite some mood. We had weighted on our mind that we wouldn’t be able to use the service of FedEx-Kinko from online and that seemed to suggest to us that our whole book was not going to happen. It took a lot of mind convincing to get certain parts past that and it didn’t happen right away. We had that going on and there was one more thing. Rich had brought home those rib-tips and he was doing a ferocious job of eating them. I don’t know if I would have really heard him or been concerned in another frame of mind, but this time it hid us like other people eating in the past as sexually terrifying our senses. We get this image of teeth and sounds scraping the insides of our vaginal area. I know this is most likely a leftover from something very bad that happened years ago, but in that state it seems like everything is extreme and real and it’s about to do us in.

Someone of our parts though came up with the part where we just go and lay down. We just got up and left and didn’t tell Rich anything. He was somewhere else with the ribs and TV. He’d tried to get us to put down the computer and join him when he came in, but we couldn’t handle that. So whichever part of us that gets like this went to bed and pulled the blanket over her head. From what we’ve pulled together and from what Rich said now this morning … we know we were pretty regressed. What I remember is him arguing with us to get out of bed and take our pills, and then him trying to help us open our fingers because they were frozen stiff. Not because of the cold, but because of what we know to be Gracie. Most likely it was Anna who got us to bed and then Gracie when confronted by Rich was the one who had to straighten themselves out. This can’t happen without the help of the Casies.

It’s hard to explain this sort of stuff, but we know that Anna helps us run away and hide, Gracie is the one who always freezes the body and the Casies are the ones able to listen to Rich and follow his instructions.

I can’t say enough of Rich for his ability to get us through these times. I think if it were Dr. Marvin and it were within time boundaries, he would have let us sleep our way through it, but Rich isn’t like that. It seems with him, he knows something is going wrong and he takes over the responsibility of making US responsible for ourselves. It usually means getting out parts old enough to be taking care of ourselves. For example Rich knows where the pills are and that we have to take them in the morning and evening, but he doesn’t know which pills that we need to take. I suppose in case of an emergency he would just have to read the directions on the bottles, but if we were so far gone we couldn’t figure that out, then we’d probably be also so far gone we wouldn’t be cooperative in taking the medicine.

The amount of patience Rich has is really, really incredible. I don’t think he seems to patient with the parts out because he’s going over simple directions and he’s going over them over and over again until we can get someone to listen. I think these times come a lot further apart than they had used to. But, it still happens and probably no small coincidence happened somewhat the same with Dr. Marvin last week. We don’t have Dr. Marvin this week. I think we have him sometime next Tuesday.

The result of Rich having done what he did, we went from the kitchen where the pills were to out to our comfy spot on the couch where we lay next to Rich. We are flat on our back with feet tucked under the big cushions … and usually with Chief by us somewhere and Rich usually is sitting up toward the front-end of the couch. His left hand rests on our shoulder and chest. There was something last night about us holding his hand and arm too tight, but for the most part … I remember that are eyes were open and we were facing the ceiling, and then we must have fell asleep.

Rich woke us up about 10 pm. He said we’d been sleeping for 3 hours and it was time to get up so we could go to bed. I figure we must have been ok, because someone insisted on bed-time fudgsicles. We know his football game had been turned back on and I remember him saying to put on the mask while he was covering us up in our blankey, but pretty much then that was the rest of the night. We didn’t wake up until almost 6 am. We got up and took our shower right away … but definitely the night had come and passed.

We went in to wake up Rich at about 6:30 am, and it took him about 25 minutes before he was getting up to take his shower. He’d brought back that something was happening last night. I think somewhere during the night we were able to point to being overwhelmed with the printing of our book and the sounds of him eating, and that’s all we really knew about this morning though he thought we knew more. I haven’t given it much thought now except what we have written and I’m not real sure beside to make a notation that we want to go into it any further. We’re much more interested now in just writing and getting back to the book.

Hmm, I just thought of something. I figured that we should align both the left AND the right edges of the page for our book. We tested it out on this document the entry were working on, and then compared it to the copy of the book and then decided that it looked much more professional. I don’t usually use this feature, but if there are enough words in the sentence, then things aren’t really spread to far outside what is easily readable. In fact, I think that having the edges cut-off cleanly it makes it easier to go to the next line. It’s one of the reasons where if I’m going to read back some of what we wrote, it’s best to post to the blog and read from there. It also right-justifies. Cool, cool. It will be near perfect by the time we finish it!

Hmm, didn’t like that … I just skimmed through the document … it spread some things out silly like 3 or 4 words in a line with large spaces between the words. I will have to ask to printers about this. Maybe I can leave a note I want things justified, but if it wrecks things up go back to the original way of doing things.

I’d really like justification, but not at the expense of doing things goofy.

This is what we’re seeing.



Hmm, that was a pretty good chart! Well without the silly spacing. I remember we did it because we were trying to understand the behavior of the group members who were the J-Landers. Someone had spread around that some people were being cliquish and that turned out to be a bad deal. It got people really wound-up. Man isn’t this something? Most of the thoughts we’ve had are just like this … saved forever and ever. It makes me feel sorry for most people who don’t have some sense of recall toward their past.

Wow! Just got up to use the washroom and get some pudding. It’s like a blizzard out there … I tried to take a few pictures and you get a general sense, but I don’t think the camera (phone) was good enough to pick up the actual snow that is coming down sideways. Here look at these though. WooHOO Real life!







Pretty cool, hmm? This is our view. You can see how the distance is all foggy like … that’s because the snow is coming down so hard. Hmm, they just said on the news that the snow has been coming down in Chicago for a couple of hours. Who would have known? Yeeks did you know that it’s already 10:30 am? I’m losing the day! Man!

I do remember that Rich wants me to go to the gym, but we might still claim a weather winter advisory. Ok, better finish this other thought up too. This looks better than the above, right?



Maybe we’ll get the printer to justify without throwing everything up for grabs.

Not a worry I have to do today.

Ok, what’s next? I think we got you pretty much caught up to today again. There were a few things to be noted yesterday. I did work some of the time doing Qnotes and at some point during that Sr. came by and gave us our first of the month check, plus a Christmas card and a Christmas gift. I really didn’t think any of that was going to happen and I thanked her as hard as I could without making things uncomfortable. The check was pretty normal, though it was written on the 22nd, so I will be able to deposit it soon. The gift was a bottle of Welch’s Sparkling Red Grape Juice Cocktail! WooHOOO!!! We opened it up and tested it last night. BUT, Rich saw and said be VERY careful of bubbles on your tummy. Drat! Drat! He got the same, but I found out this morning that he’d dranked his whole bottle! Man.

The last gift was very, very nice. She gave everyone $100 in cash. WOOHOO!!! That will cover Maury and Lauren. Whoops … maybe I better break that in half … I want to give them SOMETHING real. I feel REAL good though in thinking everyone gets the $50, but only the three boys will get in addition the book. I don’t really feel that any of them are ready to read the book, but at least they’ll have like a touch of their inheritance. And, then every time I can gather a couple hundred dollars, I will be able to give them another copy. I will make this a year-long gift like a box of grapefruits Hehehe!

AHA! My mother said to check the mail, so I just went down … want to open that next. Yup, yup … the regular $200 … It makes me feel like a jillion! Let’s see we’ll go over that again. Lauren, Maury, Alexis, Thom, Joe and Alex, and the two girls. That’s like $400. Well, at least I’ve got $300 now between my mother and Sister so that means I will have to come up with $300 on my own to pay this $100 short, plus the $200 necessary to publish the book. I realize that both my boss and mother intended the gifts to be for me, but ya gotta know that I’m a mother first.

Beside! Rich, Dr. M. AND me will get a copy of the book too! That’s a pretty darn good gift!

That’s about as much Christmas shopping as I do.

Hmm, the kitties are being goofy. They are running and chasing each other from the front of the place to the back and then back and forth. I’d left open the front door when I got the mail and they both came out to the landing. That’s pretty darn cat-crazy for them! Got them all excited. I’ll have to do that some more.

I’ll have to remember to call my mother and I should also call Connie Sue to tell her Merry Christmas. If I were really on my game, I’d call a few more relatives, but then again there is something safe in not talking to anyone. I don’t know why family is so hard, even when I want to be nice. But, I think there’s still parts of me that are scared by them. On one side I know they are nice and on the other side they are deep and mysterious and confusing. Maybe at some time we’ll get past this.

Hmm, didn’t think of that in the publishing too. There are some hard things said to people who would be shocked that I even think these thoughts alongside publishing them. I don’t know what to do about that anymore than with the other. I don’t mean to hurt people or make them angry. I can’t prove how things went long time ago, and certainly they are going to stand as character references to my grandfather long since gone – 31 years now, but I don’t know what else to do with the things in my mind that have been reverberating over and over again. I would hope like nothing else that the things my mind things of and reacts to are false, but fact of the matter however I’ve written all along the way … IS the thoughts and nightmares I have. I’m pretty sure though for as little as people talk to me it will even be less then.

I was thinking this morning after I’d written the last part as to not getting sued by people I’ve thought of and written my views on that somehow others write autobiographies telling things that they recall. So maybe there is some generic way of being covered. I don’t want to start trouble with anyone. If there was some way I could cover myself as to identity and not causing anyone problems, I’d go that route. Maybe it’s just then a matter of waiting that day and then finding out how it works from an experts point of view. Pretty sure if I ever ever published beside to the six of us that part would have to be worked out by an agent or lawyer or publisher. Probably best to keep in our mind that the most important thing now is to give the writing to the people I love best. The rest will one day fall in place.

It’s now about 11 am. Maybe I’ll give myself just a little more time and then we’re going to have to start working on the book again. I’ve put way too many years into it to back out now. Things are happening the way they will.

Funny the way things work. The section up above on the initial steps of group development was put out by me back in February of 2004. I happened to print it here because it showed obvious gaps in justification, but having just skimmed past it now … there really aren’t too many questions that wouldn’t be valid in considering if I was or would ever be allowed to be a member of my family (group) considering I have all these negative thoughts of abuse from my past. Ok, ok … making me feel too uncomfortable. I feel my eyebrows tense up and I can hear my once loved cousin saying toward my grandmother’s funeral … “I don’t want to waste my time on you.”

I’m not sure if that’s an exact quote … but it could be found again because it’s saved. It’s a hard thing when you know someone you are supposed to love considers your life a waste of time.

Not much you can say … cept hope that somewhere else she has a nice life. My own life as ever it turns out has always been more important to me than in pacifying others. I think even when it comes to the boys and Rich and my conversations over sensitive things like sex … it’s going to be one of those things they have to handle if they were to read my work, because as they were being written – and not more than mostly a mention that we’ve had it and it’s good, well that’s a part of knowing me as the writer – maybe even specially above being a mother. I don’t think I can stop being a mother, so I would never explain things out, but there’s a very humanizing thing to know and remember the levels of intimacy Rich and I’ve had for so long.

I think I mentioned earlier today … at first we tried to cover Rich’s part of our life up, but then after our situation became known by his family, it had been necessary to go more private with our blog on the Internet. At that point, we became more literal in calling people by their real names. It’s just now in thinking of publishing that these questions come to mind. But, for now without assistance from an expert with this question – we’re just digging ourselves into our doubts. There’s going to need being a lot more of that from others one day … best now to just put it aside. No doubt we need help. *Giggled here* there will be some that read one day of what we say and will insert here damn straight … she needs mental help. *Sigh* maybe that too. Hey did I mention at least I KNOW MY problems! Just trying to make the best of things.

Ok, you … remember we’re going on?! Ok, shhhh…

Oh man … didn’t realize it. We were thinking we hadn’t written too much this morning, but we looked down at the page number and we find ourselves on page 17. I know there are pictures involved and that adds to the number, but most likely we’ve really about written as much as we need to on a literal scale. BUT, this is the first day of a two-week vacation and you can be pretty darn sure that we’re going to write to our heart’s content. Just gotta keep in mind that some time after Christmas either this next weekend or the next … we’re going to want to give this gift to the boys. Hmm. Better think sooner than later. Did you hear that Thom’s coming home?

I talked to Maury yesterday and I know he’s busy for Christmas and he works on Friday and Saturday. Don’t know how his time is going to be spent after that … but he said we’ll stay in touch. Thom on the other hand gets home I believe on Thursday. I don’t know how far down the visiting list I am, but hoping for the best. Better be prepared for sooner than later, just in case. I don’t want to wreck up any of his chances to be with us. I’m pretty sure he’ll be with Alexis, or her mother, or his father first, but maybe then everyone will go to work, but me and we’ll get some special time in.

Wow! I really better get some time in on the project anyway. Just not quite yet.

I’m feeling too excitable. Rich just called to make sure we were feeling bad, because he’d guessed we’d not gone out to the gym yet. He wants us to feel bad, because he said it was his birthday and Christmas gift to get back out to the gym, but now it was too late because it was snowing so hard. I think its been snowing bad for a while now, but we pretty much get his drift. He’d specially fixed our car this morning just so we’d go. Somehow we’re going to have to get over that … Just we can only do one thing at a time and now it’s about writing.

I wonder how much of our writing is about the things we worry over. Shoot, don’t really want to go in that direction. Just feel uncertainty coming over us. I think we’re going to need figuring out something safe to talk about.

I don’t think there’s anything more that we want to say about work. We’re letting that go. I don’t know how many people didn’t make it out to the center with the snowstorm, just know that Rich called and said it’s going to take him an hour and a half to get home, because of the snow. He’s up north and I think the trip usually only is 30-40 minutes. I feel bad for him being out in it. He said that he didn’t make it to St. Rose as planned either. If Sr. has any sense she’s sending people home. When we called her this morning she was a little frosty, but probably didn’t say anything more than a word or two. I just felt she was checking me off a list … and was going on. No surprise that a snowstorm would keep me from going to work.

Rightfully speaking, since I chose not to go in and it wasn’t her first concern, then we’re most likely taking this day off as a vacation. So be it. Merry Christmas! Hehehe we woke up singing to Rich this morning over and over again … “It’s a HOLIDAY! And the Merry Bells are ringing!” No, we don’t know many more words in the song then this … so unfortunately for him they were repeated over and over *giggle* Gotta love the Rich!

Hmm, had a couple peanut butter tortillas. We thought we’d go back and look at the house, but it seems that the pictures aren’t loading right. We’re giving it a few moments now that we’ve closed Internet Explorer and then opened it. It seems it’s still downloading. It reminds me that we have to pay bills, but we should wait until we get things deposited first. We’ll need EIGHT $50 bills. Hmm, need to count it out on fingers again. Alex, Joe, Thom, Alexis, Maury, Lauren, Ame & Isa, Yes, I think that’s still 8 - $50’s. I sure wish I had more. Damn. Ok, shhhhh shhhh.

Oh double damn … Rich just called and now he says he’s 45-60 minutes away and that I have to be ready because he’s going to take me out for Chinese. He had to go before the part where we just ate 2 tortillas could be understood. Maybe we’ll be hungry again in an hour? I think the worst part though is that we’ll have to get dressed and go out in the snow. That doesn’t seem to be a very good idea! Shoot, shoot.

He had gotten a call or something so he didn’t have a chance to argue it out with us. This is one of those times though that our fingers feel so much better on the keyboard than not. All our defenses are riled now. Shouldn’t we just stay at home??

Rich was on us already this morning for staying home he said now it’s going to be FOURTEEN days that I have to worry about you not getting out of the house. Well, Yeah, like sure that’s the way things go? Remember I’m on vacation and I can do whatever I want? Yeeks!

Rich already started it over the weekend … he said we’re going to go to the zoo, and maybe like a museum, and a couple places like that. He says I have to go outside – even if I don’t WANT to go outside. Why does he do mean things to me? Ok, yes … this is coming out very regressed sounding. I hate that word! Usually, it means I gotta do something I don’t wanna do! How do I feel better?

Hmm, I found myself back at the pictures of the house. They are not all coming in for some reason, but at least a couple at a time. I’m looking at a picture of the big family room and in back of that is the kitchen and then the second picture is of the kitchen including the island. That’s making me feel a little better!

That would be a good thing to think about, right? We could think about the house? No FAIR NO FAIR!!! I don’t wanna get dressed!

Shhhh…

*Sigh*

Ok, we’re back. We’re dressed and our hair is fixed. We still have residual feelings of someone saying no fair no fair. Let’s see if we can calm that down some. Ok, what should we be thinking about the house? Hmm? Surely there is something new we haven’t covered?



Oh sure. Pictures are nice. What do you think when you look at this double shot?

Well first thing I think about is those nice windows and I think that it would look very beautiful with all that snow coming down. I can barely see the fireplace, but you just have to know that if we were there it would be on. It be nice to be in this kitchen even if it were to be cleaning dishes. We asked Rich why we didn’t go out for Chinese then later today rather than earlier, but he said it’s probably going to keep snowing and that I’d been right in that it was pretty bad out there.

HMPF! So why do we have to go out at all?

Shhh, we’re past that now, remember? Why don’t we think of something positive we can talk about since we’re going to be able to be with Rich, hmm? Maybe he’ll talk about the house?

Well, there is something that I have been thinking about. Yes? Well, it’s just that I want assurances. Can we do that? Hmm? Well, it’s just that maybe we’re going to have to swiggle our quarters to get it and maybe we’ll become a millionaire! Well, maybe SOMEone will want to read us? Uh-huh, just if we can get together with someone who is as obsessed as we are. Hmm. Well that would work!

But, anyway what I’m saying is that I know we’ve been real strong in somehow we’re going to manage to get into this house. We don’t think it’s going to be through Rich though because it’s too hard for him to come up with that kinda money without getting way into debt at the time of his life he should be taking it easier.

I don’t want to go into those terrifying thoughts that maybe our book wouldn’t ever sell, except maybe a hundred years from now, but what happens in this lifetime if we make 50 million dollars. Are we still going to live in this house? Ok, ok … that’s a fair question. It would mean that we could obviously own the house without house payments. And if we made 50 million we could afford to put in the extra $100,000 into getting it perfect PLUS $100,000 to decorate it! That be good. But, what about Rich wanting to live on a lake?

Well, you know there are some other values to living in this house than moving to another. For one, this house seems to be between my boys, Rich’s boys and his mother. That is certainly a good value. We could always then have a place maybe in Michigan, but think about that? Wouldn’t it be a lot of work? I remember Mrs. Garvey having to open and close all her places up. We don’t think we like decorating THAT MUCH! Well, maybe it would be nice though to have a place on a quiet sandy beach. Well we’ll hold the thoughts of a second place on reserve. BUT, the point I’m getting to is that we could certainly live reasonably well in this house and neighborhood AND we can get to doing all that Rich wants to do in traveling! Wouldn’t that be something?

Hmm, I’m starting to see your point. I think looking at the pictures again now that it still seems like a very nice house even when we put on our living high-off-the-hog lenses. Hmm? I think there are a couple things that we’d have to think through. We know in this little development there are about 270 houses that all look very similar to ours, so we’d have to worry about being crowded in or too generic. We’d also have to worry about living in a house that’s modern compared to living in a house that’s old fashioned. See those thoughts could be a little tricky.

Hey we’ve got a half hour, let’s work our way through it, k?

Number 1: crowded versus spacious
Number 2: generic versus unique
Number 3: new versus old

Hmm, you did that nicely. Thank you very much! Well, just trying to help! Cool, cool. Ok, let’s take point Number 1. Where do we stand … this is IF we made 50 million dollars. Hehehe I think to make that kind of movie we are going to need becoming a series of movies! Well, Just saying if you are going to be imagining, you might as well imagine big. Isn’t there something about expanding your horizons? Yah, someone says something like that!

Ok, Number 1 … Do we want to live in a crowded neighborhood or do we want something with a lot more land? Hmm, I guess there would be positive and negatives of both?

Neighbors would make you feel less lonely and scared. That’s true. But, it would be nice to have land and privacy too. Well yes, that’s a good point too. You know I was going to say … we skimmed a little of the long part of our blogging, and we’ve probably fell in love with at least a half dozen houses. It seems that the only thing they all have in common is that we definitely seem to want to live in a house.

Ok, one more thing …

Number 4: two-stories or one-story

This is going to take all day!??

Maybe not if we focus some hmm? AND, in stepping out of possessiveness … we don’t have to do this all by ourselves, we can talk it over with Rich too. AND, nothing has to be decided right away like we could wait until we HAVE $50 million dollars, HMM? No, no … that wouldn’t be any fun. What’s the good part of that? If we don’t start planning to have a jillion dollars, ahem … Million, remember? Well, just saying that if we are going to have millions we might as well have jillions! *Sigh* I know your not hopeless, but at least a little strange, hmm?

I don’t like the polka dot curtains. Shhh. We’re not going in at that level.

Beside, remember … you already said that before. We don’t want to bore anyone. AND NO … we’re not going down that path either! If we’re going to have a jillion then we should think the readers have or are ENJOYING the reading. Yes, all the obsessive ones. Let’s move on.

Very good. We wrote ourselves a note to discuss with Rich at lunch and we listened to how new houses are down by 3% … didn’t pick up any more details than that. 3% could be the difference between yesterday and today for all I know. Why don’t we skip the questions for now so we can talk about them to Rich later. Can we go back to ogling the house?

I like the thought of sitting in the living room and sometimes sitting in the kitchen. There’s two couches in the view we’re looking at … It’s pretty much the same as the other pictures we have of the family room. I think one of the objectives in living in a nice house is to be able to find the most unique position so that you can see everything all at once. Well sometimes you might want to go cozy, but just saying for now … I’m hearing ya.

Well, for one, we’d really have to discuss with Rich the problem of having the back of the couch facing the nook and kitchen. Remember that as being closed-off. AND, now looking at the picture, I can imagine not having a light on that corner which would block of the view of one spot or another. I think we’re kinda into a place where we don’t like lamps sitting on small tables. At least not in the family room. I like more the stand-up lights with the smaller shades, or those lights where they stand-up and the light points up.

I don’t know how big an affect those ceiling lights are that run flush with the ceiling. I forget what they’re called now. I don’t think you would need more than 2-3 of them if it were night and you were watching the television or a fire. I think they’d add more interesting shadows on the place than not. A fire would show just things around the fire, but you could still see a sparkly fire if other where in the room corners were being procounced slightly. You know … not all the lights, but some.

True, another idea is that you can light one of those ceiling lights up on the balcony or over-looking the library. That might have a really nice affect. You could get a sense of the height, but not so directly as being right next to you. We still have to get past the part where we’re lifting up and pulling down the curtains. Because we’re pretty sure no one’s getting sexed in the family room if Rich thinks someone is looking in. Boy … that would be an occupation. With all these big windows in the development someone could really pull a Harriet the Spy and be peekin in all over the place. Maybe we’ll have to get to know some of the neighbors to figure out how they handled the situation.

Hmm, yes that would work, we could go to a professional and ask how these sort of things happen. I remember the place with double windows up at Michigan and they had the bamboo shades pull down. I wonder if we could do something like that, but back the material in dark cotton that would not let out some of our privacy. Better check into that. You know people just don’t get these kinds of concerns as if they were raining in from the sky. You have to develop them!

Whoops more things. Rich just called and he says about 10 more minutes. He’s giving me time to prepare God Bless his heart. We got out the stuff for our checks to be deposited at the bank, and we need to get the fifties, and we need to get the locker and something else at the gym, but we don’t remember what. And, we need to stop at the mail box for the Neflix things that are taking their time getting back.

Pshwoo. Rich said to come up with a list of things we’ve got to do while we’re out, because then we don’t mind being snowed in so much. I sure wish I remember what else was needed at the pharmacy. Rich already got pharmacy needs, shampoo, conditioner and deodorant. No, nothings too personal here! Shoot what was it?

Something for the gym? Need some fluffy bunny slippers that’s for sure, but I don’t think they’ll have them at the pharmacy. Hmm, I should get some Christmas cards for the boys and all so I can give them my money gift.

Rich said something about helping him do packages so we should make sure we had enough wrapping paper and tape. I think one of the things I might have thought of was an extension cord, but maybe more important is that we stop at the Sprint store and ask about a phone cord. I don’t remember why we needed it exactly though.

Maybe to get information from the business stuff from Outlook to the phone. We’d have to see if that was going to fly with Rich. I think it was a no cost download.

Just need the cord. Better write this down.

AHA! I figured it out. We needed AA batteries because my mouse was dying. We put in the one new battery we had left and that seems to be working, but I think I remember somewhere batteries should be even strength.



Ahh … back! Just one thing with this picture. I wanted to ask if you remembered it as a place we’d gone last year. It’s just that it’s come up again as a place to go. It’s only $100 each night if you do 2 nights. There’s nobody up there at this time of the year. We talked to Rich about it on the way to the restaurant. It was a kinda dismissive conversation, but still discussed. I think it was more us that decided ok, well if the river in front of the place were frozen, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Remember this place though? It was up in Saugatuck, MI. Nice fire place and big bright open window. Probably be a disappointment not using the balcony, but there’s still that hometown wine below the place in that nice little deli! Ok, shhh … let’s save that money, k?

Ahh, Rich is back. I’ve been up here watching the news and he’s been downstairs digging out a small space for himself out back. He said the guy shoveling with the snow plow has pushed Rich’s spot toward the center which would make getting out for the guy next to him pretty hard. He bought his own special shovel and everything.

I don’t know that it was the greatest shovel though and the snow was hard. We’ll have to ask him in a bit how bad it was … wait … maybe he’s going to come by now.

Nope, he went the other direction.

I think he said something about doing some work. My guess then is he went in the kitchen to get his computer. We got interrupted at the restaurant by his phone right when we’d started asking about our questions. He said we could talk about them later though when we got home. Just I think he’s going to want to get out that work first. That’s ok; you know where I want to be spending my time.

Hmm, well, I guessed wrong on that work thing. Seems Rich wants to relax after all that snow shoveling to watch his fishes shows. That’s a real good idea! In the meantime we packaged all our gifts. *Sigh* only $50’s though. I feel bad I can’t be a better mother, but then we’ll have the book ready too, right? Ok anything else to say before I go back to there? It’s already 4 pm.

Lunch was ok, too much business stuff though. Rich saved me some time to talk though so maybe later tonight I can message his back and we’ll talk. I was trying to get out of him conversations on his mother, brother, and girls. I thought if I was spending time with these people I should know SOMEthing! He wasn’t as much fun talky-like though.

Hmm, been away for a little bit. Rich got me off track by asking me to write down a phone number and then it turned out to be a fishy magazine he needed a subscription too. So, we got him 3 years for $45. I thought that was a good deal, because he faithfully reads his fishy magazines from cover to cover. ANDTHEN, he passes them down to Bud who probably ALSO reads them cover to cover. It’s a good gift. Just in case … no we’re still giving him the gym membership that be only fair. AND, we got him a boat so he doesn’t have to pay for me. I figure I was in a safe range, because that’s how much we were spending on others.

We did ask Rich what we were going to do for Christmas since we weren’t getting to open presents. I think we’ve got him close to SPONTANEOUS morning sex. Man I’ve got a one track mind. Then I told him that maybe the day after Christmas we could go to the fishy store. That be a SUPER good deal, because then it would make him happy. I asked him and he said that he was still filling up his fishy book. He said though that it was mostly about his boat more than the fishy stuff.

What we found on-line to distract us was that Pulte sent out another ad and this one had the first available Buckingham already built for sale. They marked it down to like $393 thousand from $405 thousand. But, there was another big model there that had come down a full 10% so it had started more expensive and ended up being less than the Buckingham. The one we saw here also had the bigger lot and already had a 3 car garage. I was a little confused by it saying that it had 4 baths and 5 bedrooms. That to me though meant the library downstairs was converted to a bedroom and they took out one of the master baths for another bedroom. There were 4 FULL baths, so we were figuring the one on the first floor next to the library must have been full too – so there really wasn’t any guest bath unless you were sharing it with that person on the first floor.

We asked Rich if we could pretty, pretty please have it. But, he had to say no.

Then he said something about last he heard his wife owns half his boat. The last thing I wanna hear is that she owns half my house. HMPF! But, the deal Pulte was offering was the best yet. They are saying 0% interest on the first two years, and then after that 4.75% interest. That’s really a good rate.

Ok, ok … I got it all figured out now. First you hold up on buying anything until Rich is formally divorced so we don’t owe anything to her. Then Rich and us saves up $35,000 which would be about 10% of them coming down 10% to $353,803. So then the house is actually only $315,000. You would divide that in 30 and if you were just paying principle it would be $10,500 a year, or at 0% for the first 2 years, you would be paying $875.000, then for years 3-30 you would be paying 4.75 on less – about so then $297,000 then it would mean figuring MY way that the first two years mortgage would be $875.00 and years 3-30 the mortgage would be $1583.71. Remember back when we looked at our first $350,000 condo. Wow … can’t believe what a bad deal that would have been, BUT $1583.71 is UNDER the $1600 he said he wanted to stay under way back then.

Ok … I think I did enough here! I’ve saved the day … now just either Rich or us is going to need coming up with $35,000. Hmm, no problem there!

Ok, ok you … I think we’ve talked enough for one day. I rarely ever write in the evening and its now almost 6 pm. Rich is getting his dinner ready and I’ve made both of us a couple Sloshes. I’ll have leftover Chinese in a bit, but for now?

Better get back to the REAL work of the day. I have to work on the book. Oh one more thing – while we were out we went to the bank, Rich’s mailbox and he got his shovel and my batteries and lock at the hardware store across the bank. That was a good deal. We also stopped at Sprint and we ordered the cord AND, then on the way back from Chinese we stopped at Fanny Mae’s and got Rich’s mother a small box of Pixies. That’s going to be my gift to her. It frustrates me to pieces that the gift will not be bigger. I was seeing chocolate packages that were WAY better – mostly combinations of stuff wrapped in baskets. But, he kept pushing that would embarrass her and people got SMALL presents. HMPF!

I wasn’t GOING to get her that three foot chocolate Santa Clause, but for $60 I thought it was the BEST DEAL! Well, you know Rich he’s got a thing about some of my extravagances. We compromised by grabbing a 3” chocolate Santa Clause and we said we’re NOT putting it back! He let me slide, but then we slid into needing two more – one for each of the Grandchildren. Man being without money for Christmas is tough! BUT, I’m feeling pretty good with what we do have.

A little while ago, we wrapped the money. Well that was like cheating it was so easy. We got the 8 – 50’s from the bank and made sure they were new. AND THEN!

The lady asked us at the bank if we needed gift envelopes. Well, like sure! So she gave us these nifty double envelopes. One shows the face of Grant perfectly and it’s got some colorful decoration. Not much, but then we thought … We didn’t raise our boys to appreciate Christmas cards a lot. Besides people just want to get to the good stuff.

I felt bad about not getting Joe’s girlfriend a gift, but Rich said we’d taken it too far. He said daughter-in-laws were in, but not girlfriends. But, you know what we think of that deal  What happens Rich’s mother gets me something and I’M a girlfriend??! I’m always worried about leaving a bad impression. I feel bad about not giving at least a $100, but at least if I can finish this AMW – Book 1 … I’ll feel a little better. It’s just for the 3 boys, but if you add things up … they ARE the most specialists as far as being my direct children. That’s ok to show SOME favor there, hmm? After all, they had to put up with me the longest :)

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/23/2008 06:11:00 PM Comments: 1