This is the way we do our Farm
Good morning. This is me. I’m a little bit of a cloud this morning. It’s about 6:30 am so I’ve only got a half an hour before we go to work, but we’re not handling having thoughts. We’ve gone through some stuff from things that were up on our screen, but we haven’t really gotten a grasp on who we are and what’s happening in our world. Things seem really in a bit of a fog. I’m not sure why this is happening, but maybe it’s because I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.
We’re not sure what’s happening. I know my name is Ann, but I’m not sure which Ann I am. Rich is in the shower, I know that part for sure. I went through some open screens on my computer, but I don’t seem to understand what’s happening with all that. I feel very disconnected. We’re not sure what’s happening to our minds.
Rich seems to be just finishing his shower. I don’t recall him having gotten into that … except now I’m thinking that I got a quick feel of him not too long ago.
He’s such a snuggly bunny. We’re not too sure past that, except we’re thinking that we might want to touch him again soon. I know … there’s no shame here. Just that he feels so good to be under my touch. *Sigh* That’s a sweetie pie for you!
Ahh … I just went in and smooched him to pieces. He’s such a loverbunny!
Ok, girl concentrate here. We’ve only got a little time to get this all down. You can do it … focus!
Ok, then what’s most important to write about. Can you have a solid thought here, hmm?
Ok, we usually start off with saying something like … ok yesterday. So, what do we remember of that? It was a Monday yesterday so that means its Tuesday today. Good … good … we’re progressing here. Monday we did stuff I’m sure, but I’m not sure what. Ok focus where were we?
I know we went to work. Did we work? I don’t remember … that’s not a good sign. I don’t recall really talking to anyone. I do remember seeing Sr. Theresa for a moment. I think it was like closer to lunch time and we had just gone out to our car to get our gym bag and we had keys in hand. She looked surprised at us and we quickly explained that we had been there all morning just that we had gone out to the car to get something. She had had that unnerved face for a moment, but seemed to quickly enough grasp our explanation, which had been true. She brought to mind something or another, but I don’t recall what it was. I’m not sure where it went after that. I do remember at the end of the day that we at work an hour later. I remember looking at the clock at 3 pm thinking just an hour more before we could go and then it was 5 pm and we were just ready to leave. All the plans that had been made to get to the gym were again postponed. I don’t know what is wrong here with us and why this is so difficult. I do know that we’re noticeably putting on weight again … hmm, remember too that we stopped by for a BK hamburger on the way home.
We did talk to Rich about it when we got home. At least I did not over eat TWO meals to cover our bad deal. It still made me feel bad that we’re so out of sync with what has to be done weightwise. I’m not sure what to do, but try to break those barriers we are having.
Ok, enough of that … maybe we should get more into today? I’d like to think that we could put forth some goal and then keep it. I know that we have to work with Group 3 today because it’s their day for Circles. I’m not sure what to do with them there, we’re going to need planning out something for the week – something that will support what we do the rest of the week for the other groups. We’ve been doing sign language and that’s not necessary any more so we’ll have to try figuring out a new path … and that groups by 10:30 am so we’ll have to figure it out pretty soon.
Other than that … I do remember trying to work on CARF yesterday and that it had been a hard time. I’m not sure yet what we were doing instead.
Whoops had to harvest some of my land. The next two pictures are my farm … and then we showed what Tammy’s and Dana’s farm looked like it was really something what they did. Very proud that they are my farm neighbors! I’m getting there … just takes time. Dana says her farm has just taken a month. She’s really productive as is Tammy.
Our farm close-up
Our farm farther away
Tammy's farm
Dana's farm
Ok, I'm going to stop playing ... anytime soon, right?
Just a quick catch-up from over the weekend
Good morning. This is me. We don’t have a whole lot of time this morning. We’ve been reviewing stuff in general from where we’d left off the day before. It’s now almost 6:30 am so there’s not too much time left before we go to work. Shower, packing and medicine is all taken care of.
Hmm, Rich just got a call saying that he’s going to need opening up … so he’s going to be leaving in just a moment. That seems ok … in that he was already ready and just taking care of a few things. It gave us a chance to hug and cuddle him for a moment. *Sigh* that guy is just the frosting on the sugar free cake!
So not too much time left – I’m going to be ok … just think the mantra … I can handle work, I can handle work.
Yesterday went by too fast. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to remember what happened. I don’t remember if we were on the computer or what not. I don’t recall yesterday at all yet. I have to think hard. I do know that we had some speccccccial time with flufferbunny that was exceptional … that’s all you get on that part though.
Ahh … Rich is doing a nice Rich … he went out ahead of me so he called up to say that I could open my car from upstairs and he would scrape my windows. We had some terrible snow yesterday. Now it seems that most of it is gone, but there’s still that little bit of damage control.
Ok, back to trying to remember the weekend. I know that a good part of Friday and into Saturday we’d been working on the long post to MP.com. I don’t think we got too far with anything else.
Hmm, I do remember something. There was a point in the early morning when apparently some part of us made a comment to Rich about not knowing who he was.
That led to some really spacey time. Rich tried to talk to the part, but I just remember the part of laying on the bed with him and he was sorting clothes and we couldn’t talk and felt very confused. I think from there we went back to the living room with him and worked our way through it by watching his Sunday morning show. We eventually came back into ourselves.
Now I’m not remembering past that point. Hmm, there was something I’m remembering now. At some point we made a couple of calls … We called my mother and we called CS. John, my mother’s husband had a pacemaker put in this week and we wanted to make sure that all was going well in that direction. We had a good talk there and it seemed that we were able to respond to her as if we were in this dimension.
It had come up as very interesting that she had gotten a call back from her oldest closest friend in high school. Apparently, she’d followed my directive in giving her a call, but didn’t get responded to quite as quickly. It turned out the woman’s husband had died a couple of weeks before. That was truly a sad thing.
I guess they had a long phone conversation though and it turns out the woman is just an hour away from them in an assisted care facility. I’m pretty sure that after John gets better that they will connect. It seems like both of them could use a friend. Besides Kay Morgan and now this woman from her old neighborhood, she’s really never had a friend. I think this newer lady who puts her and John up when they are in the cities is more a friend to the couple, where this other lady and Kay had been personal friends – you know like girl to girl.
I felt happy with her for having made that connection.
She mentioned that her stepson had married someone she found out that had played volleyball with us. She couldn’t think of what the girls maiden name was, but that got us to thinking … and from there we went back into our old boxes and eventually pulled out our year books from high school. I’ve got the three of them. I spent most of the time in the year book where we had graduated. I was surprised in what we’d found.
The first thing was that we found a picture that was loose that was taken of me on the girls volleyball team when we were in college. I can’t believe how skinny and strong we looked. It was a ball in motion picture and we were bumping the ball.
There are a few other pictures, but that one stood out. There was amazingly enough though pictures in the book of us too in that it showed us literally cross country skiing and it showed another picture of us playing volleyball this time we were serving. I can hardly wait to show Maury – because he also did volleyball in school and was particularly good also in serving and in bumping. I think he’s going to enjoy seeing how good we looked!
We did a very long and comprehensive look through the book. We didn’t find the one my mother had mentioned, but we rekindled a lot of thoughts. We were impressed with how many names and faces we’d remembered, but then too we were remembering a certain group of people mostly the ones that were busy and involved and seemed to gravitate to the higher academic skills. There were several groups we were involved in that I don’t have enough time to explore now
We also got one more call from Maury while he is down in Mexico. It sounds like things between him and Lauren are not going to work out. I won’t go into the specifics here, but I’m not sure if their marriage is going to remain intact. We’d hoped that things would get straightened out while on the trip, but now we’re thinking it’s more like the last hurrah. It hurts to think of Maury going through something negative, but then it seemed we were more prepared that this could happen. I’m glad that he got a chance to take this trip though and I just wish it would be happier for him
I was really touched that he had called.
We’re going to need to get going now, but maybe we’ll continue for just a bit after we get to work. There are a few more things I’d like to figure out, though at the moment I can’t think of what. BUT, it’s that time … so see you again later ;)
Mostly posts from MP.com ... now it's a Monday
Good morning … this is me. I’m not sure if we’ve written over the last couple of days … I better check, Ok, did that … I was right we haven’t written since Thursday morning. It’ going to be a little tough to figure out those several days, but I know the important part is that we’ve been at home since sometime on Thursday.
We had done the work thing including the printer guy, the H&R Block, the bank, the mail, but then we got caught up on the car. We had to bring it to the shop because the brakes were squealing so badly. We stopped to get gas and then we called and made arrangements so that I could get dropped off at home after bringing in the car. I think I had to wait an hour in between so I had come home first. I think that time and ever since has basically been spent on the computer.
I wasn’t able to work it out with Rich the arrangements that would have had him bring me to work on Friday, but we didn’t push real hard for that. He was having a hard day getting things in and then he continued the day by going to his son’s until very late. I think he got home after midnight, but I don’t really recall the details.
Because of the car going into the shop, I wasn’t able to meet Dr. Marvin though we spent 15 minutes on the phone. We both agreed about him not doing appointments over the phone. I think both of us had had a hard week earlier so we were feeling pretty zapped. Sometimes after hard stuff you just gotta spend the time getting back into your lazier life. That meant for me touching base back with both Facebook and MP.com.
I find when those things are behind, we feel behind. I think there are differences between the parts that do that stuff and the ones that don’t, but we’re not really big on trying to figure out what parts are doing what. Just at some point we know priorities have shifted.
This morning we started off with those two again just making sure they were more or less up to date. Part of the work into that involved doing a very long 9 page post again for the Cliques thread. We broke it up to 5 pages of entry. I didn’t get a call out this time from the moderators, so I’m thinking we were ok. There weren’t too many responses back yet, but it hadn’t gone through since about 10:30 pm last night. It’s another period of wondering how its going to be accepted. I hope people don’t get tired of me. There was conversation after the last time about doing the big individual posts compared to the shorter general ones. I felt bad that my work might have left some of them feeling guilty where that shouldn’t of happened at all. There were some responses like I wish I could do that or that there would be more time.
I don’t know why I do it exactly, I know that if I’m doing it that some kind of time or another has been found. Without going to work on Friday it gave me a chance to catch up. There was like 6 pages of posts to go through to get the job done. It takes quite a while and then a certain amount of stick-to-it-ness to continue to the finish given the time it takes to put together.
We won’t go through that part again because we went through it before. This is the end result. I am trying hard then to figure out who each of these people are when we are doing the Facebook.
Posted - 03/28/2009 : 12:17:29
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I’m back – how is everyone? It’s the WEEKEND! Well, I might have cheated there … in that I was happy the car broke down on a Friday and I could stay home while it was getting fixed. You might have guessed we’ve been hanging around here most the day. I want to thank everyone who had said such nice things about my last post and I wanted to in part apologize for the clarifications needed in noting long posts weren’t necessary, or that people would be ok if there wasn’t time for that, but when there was time it was ok too. I really do like to write, think and hang with you guys, just I couldn’t do the long posts all the time either, plus I’m not a regular enough character to write consistently every day. I read more than I write. I am in all my glory on days I can sit back like today and pour over all the information given. I don’t know why this particular group is feeding so many of my needs, but I feel very comfortable being here. Thank you to all for that – ESPECIALLY MS Sandy – who seems to welcome me whether I’m here or way over on the Japan side of deployment. She’s just so cool!
Before I start on my next long run I wanted to comment on my own son. Thom’s been in Iwakuni, Japan now for 10 days … WooHOO!! We’re making it! I had several days that were very sad and a bit obsessive, but we did hear from him and that seemed to make all the difference. The first day he IM’d me – oh Lordy … I look over and there he is online most likely talking to his new bride – What GREAT fortune! Well that is if he responds back. I’m still a neglected Mom *Sigh* Like I was saying first night he IM’d, but only so I could call his girl and get her online too *Double Sigh* BUT, one other morning soon after he spent an hour with me in IMs answering my many questions. He was expected to go to his regular base the next day and was looking forward to knowing the new command. I was glad to hear that he wanted to continue his education to get into the next rank … BUT, I know that time will be split between that and his woman! God bless young love.
Ok, maybe I’m invisible again - Thom's time has taken him elsewhere, so we’re going to continue just writing … warms my heart to see that the kid still has not been taken over by a clever Japanese Comic Book character or giant sci-fi monster or nuthin! You might see here how little we know about culture … there’s still time and hope for us! Ok … then moving on and apology to Diane who still might be thinking … she’s still alphabetizing … yes, well then … did I mention our obsessiveness yet? AHA refers back to second paragraph
Alice – Not only are you the first “A” name, you’re from CA which satisfies me reading from left to right (we’re in Chicago :) First question would be … how is the shoulder coming along? I saw just now you are waiting until tomorrow on the MRI ... are you frazzled yet? I wouldn’t worry about not being a tough enough Mom for feeling pain. I’d say you’re pretty tough for taking it on! As to hitting bandit raccoons, seagulls AND people? … No you all didn’t do that did you? I’d like to hear more of your insurance coverage … got to be good! What is good is the poem book that just seems incredibly creative – how are the illustrations coming along? And, is Michael out of medical now and into training? AND, inquiring minds want to know what happened to the green peeps are they still hangin out? It’s got to be part of not wanting to grow up … I heard that … young brain – sounds ok to me – yup yup keep things simple!
Angie – You and certainly that boss ought to talk to Alice about being too old! Keep on truckin! Or, maybe in your case “Keep on runnin!” I feel very similar to you and most others in appreciation of all the Marine Moms here. Living our faith as a Marine parent might be righteous though I’ve never really thought of the word – there is no doubt we believe in the lives of our sons and daughters. Our son is also in Japan now – we’ve got to have a lot of faith to believe all is well in that each day as we go to bed he’s just starting out on his next day’s hard mission – or we’d never sleep! We need to think its ok and that as you say so well – maintain awareness that God is working behind the scenes. I was doing a group this week on sexual abuse. I work with adults with developmental disability. I had to explain the term “being aware” as to them not taking for granted safety in their environments – such as sometimes even family can be abusive. Life would make more sense if we could see God in those we should be respecting and honoring – especially when vulnerable.
Bren – How’s the hubby doing and do you still have so much snow? It seems that you all got that jumbled up and decided to have some colds during the bad weather. Is it over yet? Hmm, one other practical question … did your son get the house rented? I’m thinking that’s what might have happened if he is in need of some of the washer, dryer and mower. It sounds like your son got a promotion if he’s now “over” ammo. It sounds like a leadership position. You give good advice as to enjoying the boys when they are home and not over-thinking things. Sometimes we get in a daze too and realize we’re not being in “real time” with that meaning being into the day or the moment instead of being in yesterday or tomorrow. There’s no doubt being “out of reality” will put you behind the eight ball – and get you behind in spring cleaning! About time to throw open those windows - hoping everyone gets better at your house :)
Charlotte – Wanted to say up front that we should make up some terms on this healthy eating plan … sounds like many have started already, but we’ve been taught – that your never late, just jump in wherever you’re at! So with that said – what are your plans for Saturday? I think we need to get Dana involved here too if not others who seem ready. We could say … we should set a fitness goal and a nutrition goal. Ok, then … I’ll start. For nutrition my goal for Saturday will be just three meals and no snacking and fitness goal will be if I don’t go out on the boat tomorrow due to rain – I will absolutely go to the gym. Does that thinking work for you? Whoops friend just called looks like we’re trading today gym for a walk at the zoo - this counts! I’m sorry to have heard of your friend being in the accident and feel your gratefulness in not having physical injuries. But … wow … the mind – it’s hard to prepare that from breakage. As well, we hope keep your friend with cancer also in our prayers – I will hope she has good support. One question … you had mentioned being in Dana’s shoes - is Nathan going to soon be deployed?
Cheryl – Saw you zoom past here being excited for Kim on the return of her son – I read your footprint in that your son was a former DI/SDI & Educational Instructor at MCRD … Wow! Congratulate him for us and give him our thanks as a once Recruit mother now headed for the big time! I can’t say enough of his work or that of his peers! They are awesome!
Dana – I’m sorry to hear of your Father’s passing. It’s understandable as to you being in deep thought this week. I know when I’m down I tend to look for more sleep. We will pray that when you lay down you get the restful part you need. Your Father seems to have set a good example to your son. I think the money part is hard to get a handle on until the young Marines struggle through management issues. I remember the shock of learning they had to pay for their uniforms. What do you hear this week on deployment? Rushing the date doesn’t seem quite the deal, but you are right in that God is protecting the Marines. This is the part of having faith, right? God Bless!
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Diane – I hope your son is able to maintain his healthier self and that all the little cherubs are getting good hand cleaning lessons. Yeeks! When it rains it pours. I take credit at our agency for pushing the boss to put the Purell Hand sanitizers in each of the group rooms. It’s really cut back on health problems for all. I wanted to ask you though if you’ve heard of an online lady named the FlyLady. You could Google her if you need more support on the housecleaning. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I get her emails every day and look toward her lessons on decluttering to get me through some insane times. She also taught me about keeping the car cleaned out and having a better attitude, especially about excuses for not working at least 15 minutes a day on the house. She starts her “Flybabies” on cleaning the kitchen sink as the place to begin and then after time her logic settles in and you find your place more and more comfortable. Let me know what you think? She might help you get a handle on it.
Donna – I want to hear about those bravery peeps. So what’s the deal you eat it and then put on some auto courage? Was it only the green ones, and then if so is the bravery season over? I’ve always been partial to pink Easter bunnies! I’m pretty sure that whole Facebook deal is some conspiracy against doing the things we’re supposed to be doing - I had to let it go for a week or so and even this site
There are times stuff just gotsta get done *sigh* I had some guilt in that I didn’t have time to say thanks sooner to a lot of people who’d said nice things to me – I didn’t feel able to give it the time commitment that my inner demons demand. Its part of the thing we perfectionists thrive on. You shouldn’t have to apologize … For me … I just think well when writing and I like to do it most free moments I got. I giggled about these being the Big Board’s – that was my thought coming over here too … now after reading Paula I find that we have to learn about Big Girl Panties too!
Heidi – Congrats on having Steven and his friends come home last weekend. You must have been so excited. Were you able to keep up the excitement or was it a down thing after your house was empty of their company? Well – that maybe if there hadn’t been five more kids and a hubby to fill in the empty spaces. After all the press on the Octomom I don’t think I could think of anything under 16 as being truly a large family, but it must be really awesome to have that much love in the house to share. My three boys were within 4 years of each other so when one left it seemed the all trickled out nearly as fast. Can you remind me again that 3 years old can be tough?
Kim – Wow Wonderwoman is back! Good luck on the car! Nah lady you couldn’t have scared me away for too long. Well you were a little scary with the message on donating to the worthy cause of Marine Parents moving! Wow … Like licitly split I read your message and sprinted into the kitchen to grab my credit card! Not going to catch this warrior falling asleep on post! I agree on everything said on the value of MP.com and the thought that we should all support its needs … Tracy is really short on the capital to get things done. I’m btw glad to hear that your Father is doing better and you’ve heard my excitement for Glenn being on home grounds. Any luck on breaking ground in the communications department? Hmm, looking over to Thom still signed in online for nearly 4 hours now. It be 2:30 pm there now, so maybe he’s stepped away from the computer. Must have … we don’t want to imagine he’s IGNORING his mother? Hmm … As to other parts of the missing Ann conundrum … we had some legal problems this week … some crazy lady sent me a subpoena because she thought my kids were her husband’s. Like really … “Get out of here!” Is there an up and coming attorney in the house? Well teasing there, but it was sort of hairy!
Linda – hmm looking for care package withdrawal people … AHA! Sounds like another worthy cause project! Well you can figure that I’d be able to let go of $22 more dollars to sponsor at least one Marine care package. I figure it’s like Zu-zu’s bell being tickled and through request of an angel we should kick a little more into the pot. You all have such good hearts! It looks like only $150 has been raised for the June 6th drop … good time to make a small difference – this one is in honor of Thom’s birthday April 25th – you can write that right in on the outgoing package! Ooh-Rah!! We also appreciated your wise words of encouragement while sons are deployed in as far as thinking positive and that peace and strength coming from not only the Lord, but as well from the simple life pleasures that can calm a soul. While thinking of Thom’s birthday we went over to Amazon and ordered some books that were on a Marine reading list up through Corporal. I liked the idea you present in sending care packages to our sons … I know he’s not asking for anything, but I want him to look forward to the mail coming in too
Lou - it’s nice to meet you – I hadn’t seen you last time I rumbled through. Three deployments, wow … that says all that needs to be said … that’s some set of Mom skills you must have developed. But, then I haven’t seen a moderator not having excellent Mom skills and abilities … you guys rock!
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Mary – you made me smile in getting all the communication from your son. He’s setting himself to be a good role model in taking the business courses. I hope my son follows suit. We’re giving him no excuse for not having good reading material. I don’t know what motivates them to wanting to climb rank, but to know that they are learning – well it just feels so much more protected like they are really taking care of themselves. As to plane rides I’ve already started imagining myself doing the long hours to get to Japan. We looked last week at Google Earth and discovered if we kayak from Hawaii – Japan is only 3,879 miles … in total from driving and kayaking from Chicago it’s 9,323 miles and would take 36 days and 1 hour to get there … BUT, that’s crossing through North Dakota and I’m not sure how stable that is this week, plus I understand we’re almost up to Washington’s rainy season … Yikes! I’ll need to pick up a new coffee pot and I’d definitely be in the pink peeps time zone!
Michelle – I can imagine that you must be falling over yourself in excitement. By my means of reckoning your son is just about 2 days out from coming home. That is a whole lot of looking forward. 9-10 days slips by so fast. I remember Thom’s first time home and him trying to make it to everyone’s places to get his visiting done. I think it must have worn him out, because the next time he came home and stated to that entire group he was just going to be spending private time with his wife. I can’t imagine him having given up all the poker games with his brothers, Dad and friends, but you can never bet on a young man’s heart! We add our prayers to all of yours in hoping that everyone is going to be ok feel God’s strength and gives us the patience to continue in the darkness of our difficulties. We hope that you and your family are over any colds and are ready with open arms to receive that special Marine! Congrats!
Missy – How is the cookie baking coming along? I was wondering with the suggestion of placing cookies in Pringle containers if you had to eat all the chips on your own or whether that became a family affair. Congrats on getting to chat with your Marine. I can only imagine the nervous smile on his face thinking that his mother had taken over what is most like his favorite possession. You’re tweaking all of us in the excitement and sensuality of flying down the street with tresses blown to the wind! I think you must be warming the season from the inside your zippy heart outward :) I hope that your midterms went well and can imagine you are now down the long stretch toward finals. I think this is the lull time in thinking that you’ve got time, but knowing in all actuality there’s yet a ton of work to do. Please accept all my extra hugs in matching the enthusiasm of those long nights as your eyes quickly skim, your keyboarding fingers dance, and your mind is exploding in the joy of newfound learning!
Nancy – It be a real good idea to start a support group for healthy eating and fitness – and on the side – we wanted to remind you again that spring is in our midst! We’re thinking that with so many of the guys like yours are going to be deploying soon so there’s going to be a lot of spare nervous energy that could be channeled more usefully. It is encouraging that you are starting the new eating plans. We support you entirely in your goals already put forward! I’m on the mother-side of the board too in not hearing from my son nearly enough, but we think of him enough to cover the both of us in thought sets. I thought some about the term letting go and then changed that set of thoughts to just “letting be.” Maybe it’s just semantics, but the first seemed more like incorporating loss where the second felt closer to a sense of joy that some of the others like Angie had incorporated in her thoughts and prayers. I’m playing all kinds of mental games to settle my mind. If I focus I can appreciate that the worry is just excess energy keeping me on hyper alert where calmer thoughts would better serve an even sense of graciousness in just breathing in the normal days. Our prayers extend to you and yours!
Nancy Lynn – Are you feeling any better? I understand the sense of catching up on the reading. I came back like 1 ½ weeks later and there’d been like 6 pages added to the Cliques board. I thought of it as positive that your son has been put on light duty. I bet you its making his head sore and if he’s anything like my son – he’d be looking at getting back to PT! How did the delivery of your nephew’s wife go? Is everyone happy? There must be so much excitement! The other happy thought might be in thinking you are going to be going soon to Hawaii to visit Anthony. Have you ever been there before? Are plans in the work? Reading these posts allow me to share the joy of others. I see mental images of reunions and gathering or simple pleasure in receiving the proverbial cookie package and I feel warm and accepting of life. I think the prayers coming from Marine Moms (MM) have to be strong enough to hold up most of heaven! We’re all told a very powerful group of people – I’m glad I’m in it with you and others like us!
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Nina – Are you ok? Where are you? Pretty sure you’ve by now celebrated you birthday and we’re hoping between that and all the other five family birthdays – you’re just tired and tuckered out from all that celebrating! I would wish people don’t feel bad for going for the longer individual posts. I’ve always been a little eccentric when it comes to my desire to write. I start thinking and I can’t stop. If I’m not here you can bet I’d be writing dozens of pages somewhere else. I’ve kind of got this stomping ground I favor and it’s just now the Cliques board has caught my attention. Have you had any luck in catching the attention of your home computer? It’s nice to think that a couple of mothers here have sons in Japan like us and that for you your family and Bren’s share in having son’s working with ammo. At that we’ll just ease in here a few extra prayers. I imagine you must worry, but in consideration of the larger families inclusive of hubby’s, kids and animals – we’re guessing you’ve worked out systems to de-stress! Yup … so good eating, right? Hanging tight with you!
Pam – How’s the weight loss coming along? I talked over a few goals earlier, but I’m thinking now that I should probably include getting on the scale. Reality! Brrr. Well at least I have on my skinny pajamas … it be way out on a limb to be wearing the flannels getting up on that scale! I congratulate your son in having called his father for his birthday … that kind of gesture makes up for scores and scores of days where things are feeling more tentative – thinking for sure this is what makes up what you’d referred to in as God’s glory. I’m on a real celebration theme here today. I’m all sparkled up on thinking of the gifts our children bring us – both children away and at home. It makes me feel good now that we’re on the deployed family side to know that the excitement and joy our son Thom makes us feel is getting shared with a whole new deserving set of folk. Thom had wondered about what his new command was going to be like and if he could continue to joke with them as his last command, but in my heart – I know that they’re going to take him in and love him just as people usually do – after all he’s a Marine and family is family! I hope that the recent news you’ve gotten will just go to making her a stronger Marine Mom!
Paula – Are you getting closer to be snowless? Wishing you the best there! Congrats at having your son home because that’s bound to make any Mama proud. I’m thinking though already that the 10 days is nearly over and there’s a little sadness around. The idea of enjoying the time now and worrying later seems very sensible as are many of your thoughts. Well except that thought on the Big Girl Panties … we’re really not into that flow … ya know some girl’s need bigger panties than others … and we’d be one of those. Now we’re not talking our former life MN Paul Bunyan size, but pretty large! I find that this has nothing to do with my level of bravery. That comes from swinging our mighty magical light saber sword. Well almost … we didn’t quite add that application to our IPod, but to tell you the truth we were considering. Must be something to do with being a Marine Mom? Or, could we classify this as keeping our mind occupied? Our prayers to you and yours!
Sandy – Are you still hanging with us here – almost done … We tried to break things down, though found we had the same volumes to be writing about. I can’t imagine how you get to so many posts in one week. I’d like to say we are backing down the productivity of our thoughts, but I’m afraid to say … it might be an exaggeration of will power! Our best to you and yours :)
Scheryl – You are in our admiration group like Kim, Sandy and others for what you are doing here on MP.com. We look forward to seeing your hugs whether for us or others. We’re not having a baby getting those kinds of hugs, but it may count that our Marine is going to turn a brand new 27 within the next month? Oh Lordy to think of having to start all those years over again … It be worth a good psychiatry session though the story ends happily ever after!
Sherrie – WooHOO! Saving the best for last, hmm? Congrats on just seeing your son again. It must be very exciting to know he will soon be home. I’ve got another friend on MP.com whose son is coming in now too. There’s just so much excitement in the air. I’m trying to get an Amazon order through so we can try that deal on getting out the first care package. We know our son got into his regular base this week after being in Japan for 10 days, but we don’t yet know his mailing address. It feels like starting off in bootcamp all over again. We went through some crushing moments, but are now thinking more like an excited puppy waiting for new news to come through the door! I know you’ve been here before and probably have scads of stories to tell. Love is definitely in the air and it feels almost as thick in positive spirit as the density of homemade pea soup. I think you could come to MP.com and learn to define motherhood at its best. Our best to you and all yours!
________________________________________
VPM of Lance Corporal Thom (Ann)
2651 Special Intelligence System Administrator/Communicator,
PDS Iwakuni, Japan 3-16-09 (plus 3 years)
MOS Corry Station, Pensacola, FL 2-20-09
MCT - Fox Company, Camp Pendleton, CA 7/15/08
1st RTBN, Alpha Co., Plt 1002, MCRD-SD, 6/6/08
also VPM of Maury and Joe, VPMIL to Lauren and Alexis,
VPGM of Austin, Ami and Isa and
VPL (lover) of Rich
It's about "all" of us
Back again … it seems like there are about 24 people using the thread at this time. There’s a whole lot going on. There’s a lot of information that isn’t getting used when we post, but it seems to help in putting together our thoughts, because we can siphon out the parts that feel the most important to address. I think the most important point that had been missed; though maybe I missed it was that one of the girls had told others about being sad her father had died last fall. I wanted to make sure she got some kind of support on that because it was such an important issue for her.
I’ll check it again in about an hour or two to see if people have gotten up yet. But, in general I think people don’t get up like we do and go immediately to the computer. Maybe they do, but just it’s hard to expect stuff right away, especially when there are only so many moderators to go around.
Just a few notes from work
Good morning. This is me again. We’re at work and it is about 9:30 am. We are still waiting for the printer guy. I hope he gets here soon so my day doesn’t get too messed up.
As to the general computer/printers we found 4 of the little ones that weren’t able to print, I thought I couldn’t print on mine, but I decided while waiting to get refills in the color cartridges and whoa! My printer is working! Shoot can think of the days where it would have served our purposes that it did so. I’m feeling pretty ridiculous about that all. But, there are still 4 computers not working so we’re happy about that part. Would have been embarrassing for him to come and all the printers were to be working.
I’m hoping with the other machines it’s a matter of coding the computer proper. That seemed off in a few and I’m not sure of the other two as well. They each say something different in connecting. I checked and all 4 get the Internet so I can be pretty sure it’s not the cable although that usually is a likely suspect.
It’s taken me all morning to get to this point. I also had met Rich while he was here to get the attorney’s address. We’re still complaining between the two of us about whether it has to go in, but his lawyer didn’t say to skip turning it in. It turned out that he was just getting a copy of the document from the other attorney today. Rich took 1 week to get it in … just the letter FROM the other attorney.
But, I know in 6 days it is supposed to be in. I don’t have time to wait this terrible game between Rich and his attorney where things move like molasses.
Then he said that maybe his attorney wouldn’t need the documents and that I should wait until he asks, but my way of thinking of it is that if the other attorney has the documents, of course Rich’s attorney is going to want to know what’s going on.
It seems like another delay and another day off to take care of mailing things on two separate days. I’m going to do it all on one day … and then I want to be through with it.
I figured I worked hard to get everything in. This is not going to sit on my shelf.
As to the meetings today … you know the status of the printing guy and then there is two meetings. We’ll do one like yesterday for CIRCLES on Sexual abuse. One of the clients had gotten material to look at from her work and Sr. thought it would be a good idea to share it with all the groups.
I had a hard time with it with Group 1 because of two of the guys preference in thinking sexual thoughts in an adolescent manner. We worked hard though to stay on task and convince them that sexual abuse was a serious matter. I don’t know how deep the lesson went, but the effort is well worth the lesson taught.
The other group – staff training will be taken over by Sr. Theresa. She’s going to have the first Friday meeting today. I asked her about it being Holly’s turn, but she said pretty much not to fuss over it and that I should just stay in. She did ask if there was anything I wanted to bring up with the staff that I should write it down and give it to her.
Let’s think about that now. The staff did real well with the sign language and the staff did good with the state inspection. Those were the things that we were looking for. The staff had gone over the policies and procedures. As to paperwork, we just went through the chrononotes with Rosa a month or so ago … so that’s all good.
All the DSPs are also caught up with the chrononotes, though we might review that they are due on the 5th of the month for the previous month. That’s not major.
Hmm, better look at their schedule. I know that Sr. had done a survey to see what they were interested in and then there is the schedule that we propose to DHS standards. Let’s see where that lays.
Ok … well we’re well through the day … I just finished with the CIRCLES group.
We’ve been working through sexual abuse and it was a lot easier to do this with Group 2 than Group 1 because of some unruly males in Group 1.
The computer guy took a couple of hours between 9:30 and 11:30, so then I slipped out pretty fast to do the H&R Block return before the noon group. I think I’d stated earlier that Sister is going to do the next group for me, but I gave her the program areas and ideas to cover as well. They turned out to be about 8 pages which were mostly lists. I will close up here after I get back from the meeting. Hmm, or maybe now?
Next is bank and post office, and then Dr. Marvin’s and home. I don’t know if Rich is going to be in … no strike that … I KNOW he’s got a game tonight. And, then we’ll have to see about tomorrow … My car is making a loud squealing sound in the back and I think it’s my brakes. I made an appointment to get my car in … just have to see whether or not I’ll be able to go to work.
But for now … better go. See ya!
Summary leading up to a Dr. Marvin Day
Good morning. Or could we say c’mon, c’mon, c’mon … Rich c’mon it’s time to be up … c’mon, c’mon, c’mon!
He seems to then have remembered that yesterday he was a little pushy with someone!
Hmpf!
Hehehe then we inserted the hand, c’mon hold the hand I’m going to pull you up … c’mon, c’mon, c’mon. Sheesh … might just feel like shooting the rooster! But, I’m glad he didn’t! But, it can be a very pesty, pesty thing to do. Effective though … just pesty.
It’s a little after 6 am now and we have already taken the shower, take the medicines and gotten packed up to go. I think there are a few things though. I’ve got to get the address for Rich’s attorney and I’ve got to get the envelopes to the bag.
I finished up yesterday almost everything, but I’ve got to stop and H&R Block for 2005 tax return, then I’ve got to make copies of everything, and then I have to go to the bank to notarize the documents and then we’ve got to go to the mail box and certify them – plus … I have to go to Dr. Marvin’s today. I think I would take the day off to finish this, but sister has the printer guy coming and I told her I’d be there. Maybe after that I will take off and see if I can get back by group time?
Yeeks … I’m not in much a mood for doing that. I’d have to have time to plan out something for both CIRCLES and Staff training. I’d rather just miss that, hmm, I’m not sure now.
Printer guy at 9 am and I’m not sure when H & R Block opens … I would think by 9 am, but no later than 10 am. So … got the stuff … THEN I have to go back to St. Rose … let’s say 10:30 … hmm, then we could copy and plan the groups … do the groups at 12 and 1, end at 2 and then get to the bank at 2:30 by 3 pm be at the post office, and then by 3:30 pm be going to Dr. Marvin’s. Hmm, have to be coordinated but I think this is doable. Just have to float it past Sr. Theresa.
Most simply I could say I’ll be there for the printer, but then I’ll have to go to H&R Block down the corner, but I will be back plenty of time for the groups, but then I will have to leave right after them … if that’s ok. It should be … she knows there is something going on legal and she’s been supportive of it this far. That also means that I won’t have to take off any time tomorrow. This would be a good thing.
Hmm… Sweetie Pie’s getting out of his shower now … That’s a good thing … you know that voyeurism thing I got going. I might want to go help him get dressed today.
We didn’t have too much time last night,
I had after work made trips to the rental place to get the lease, then the pharmacy to get those costs, and then the bank to get the statements, and then the courthouse to get the birth certificates. We had to make one stop during the courthouse thing to get some cash because the card didn’t work at their place, but other than that … went straight home and pretty much collapsed until Sweetie Pie came in about 9:30 pm.
We spent an hour together, but it wasn’t all quality time … he looked at the documents I’d prepared, but had small complaints about what I’d done, but I’d done so much during the day – including having written a response to the subpoena that I didn’t much feel in the mood for complaining. He said I probably don’t even have to send it, but that just made us frustrated, because as far as I was concerned the subpoena was real as was the statement saying I could be held in contempt of court if I didn’t make an honest faith response in completing it on time.
I figured that if Rich would have wanted to get legal opinion from his attorney elsewise that he would have done it. The attorney mailed it out on the 17th, it got there on the 19th, we waited for Rich to talk with his attorney, and yesterday was the 25th – 6 days after and there’d been no word otherwise and it’s due on the 31rst and today is the 26th. I figure you always have to rely on 5 days for mailing, so it’s like there is no time to play here. I really got to get things finished today. If that makes Rich crabby, I’d only ask why him …. I’m the one that has to do all the work and is having my private records explored by his ex and her attorney.
If there was any grumbling to do it should be from me!
When Rich said let’s go to bed it took me a few minutes longer. Not much though.
Basically, we got over our frustration, because the bottom line is that this is Rich’s divorce and he’s got rights to make sure things are going according to his plans too. So, we had our fudgsicle and then went in to snuggle with our bunny.
Hmm, he just came in for his smooches. He’s going to leave 15 minutes earlier than me and he’s also headed to St. Rose. I think he has to leave about 9 from there, so he wants to get things going.
So that pretty much brings things up to level 1. I’m not saying I’m really looking forward to the day because there is so much to be doing, but there’s some fun in having the day broken up so there’s a variety. I think things should be ok. I don’t feel we’ve done anything wrong, so there’s nothing to do, but process.
Hmm, there is one more thing. Rich said he told Chris last night about him and us living together. I’m not sure if he said for how long we’ve been together, but there were a few more things too. Just have to remember. I don’t remember also if he told Chris about us being a multiple. I don’t think that one happened, but because Jillian knows I can’t imagine it’s going to be much further off than that.
There was something else said, but I don’t remember. Basically, I think Chris didn’t seem too surprised. Rich said that he kept pretty much to himself. I know that Chris will talk to his mother about it, so then we’ll have to see what the fall-out is going to be. I think that Rich felt some relief in being more upfront concerning what’s happening.
I’m not sure what else was discussed, because the whole thing is foggy to me … which means most likely the conversation was had with another part, not with me.
So, I think that’s really pretty much it.
I’ve got a few more moments … so I think I should think of what’s next. We’ve already gone over our schedule, so there’s not much there. Maybe if I could give a small summary of where we are right now.
Basically, I’m very glad that we’ll be meeting up with Dr. Marvin tonight. There’s been a lot going on this week. I can’t disagree that this kind of pressure has something to do with having been suicidal again earlier in the week. Mostly, I think I can take only so much pressure, before there needs to be some kind of relief. I’m very frustrated that we still have these thoughts. But, I think the bottom line is that we are taking our anger against us because we don’t want to be messing up Rich’s life.
I know that he’s made choices for himself all along, but we think of the disruptions that we’ve caused particularly with the kids and then we feel bad. I love Rich dearly, and don’t want to see him and his hurt.
I don’t think I’ve done wrong in loving the pieces out of him. It seemed that during all those years where the wife was so bitter against him that Rich deserved some kind of love and adoration. He’s always been my special love and I can’t feel guilty about that. There will be questions asked long after whether it would have been better to break things off with either his wife or me long time ago, but this is pretty much Rich’s life and we have to go with what his priorities are.
I’ve got a part too in my own life, but as mentioned before hand, I was able to tell my kids the situation over 10 years ago. Rich would have preferred I had not done that, but he understood too that we needed to do our kids our way and he’d have the same choice with his kids.
So pretty much that’s it for now – I’ve got to be going to work. As to a finally summary thought I would have to say that no matter what’s happened so far or what’s next to come … that I am appreciative for being in Rich’s life and no matter what … we’ll continue to love and support him the best we can. This guy is worth it!
Ok ... just want to say we're up and processing again today...
Good morning Dr. Marvin.
We just wanted to say that we took the medicine last night and this morning. Rich had a hard time getting us up to do it this morning, but he’s the most faithful pest any girl could have ever known. We are now at work. We haven’t gotten our work thoughts pulled together, but we’re here on time so that seems to be half the battle.
I’m sorry we’ve been so much trouble over the last couple of days. I know that we will talk about it tomorrow.
We’re still feeling grumbly, but not so much as we can’t move forward. Might write some today or we might surprise even us and try doing work.
Us
This is us again. We’re back to doing not much at work yet, but it’s still early … it’s just after 8 am. We need to be working at work today, and we’re going to make that a more serious goal than yesterday. Not that we weren’t serious yesterday, just we had more stacked up against us.
Let’s make our first stop go to work thing in 45 minutes. I will be in very good shape if I can be working at 9 am.
We just called Rich and told him that we’d gotten to work on time. He said – oh … that’s a good thing! Yeah I know. Just we have to get to the point that it’s ok with us.
Hmm, maybe with our available time we could try and figure things out again. I know we were set off by the thoughts that someone could erase our work. It was a turning point on Monday when we’d figured out how to slowly back things up. It helped just to get through the day … though like the previous night we’d been having suicidal thoughts.
Dr. Marvin talked to us both Monday and Tuesday. By the time the main crisis as far as backing up the work went we were already well into problems because of not taking our medicine. To be fair Jillian and her father did talk and it appeared she’d just been over at OH.com and most of that information has now been erased. We know that she still has a hard copy, but we’ll have to let things go as they might. Nothing to do about that now.
We know even if she gave the material over to her father that she’s read through it all. I’m not sure exactly what was there. I know there was some personal stuff, but also stuff on losing weight. Her bottom line concern was stated something like she was protecting her father, because someone business like could have Googled the information. To be fair they had to Google me not him, but the result is similar.
In this respect it was good that it came down.
There’s a sadness part to it too knowing that my life has to be more private at this moment. We sure would like Rich to finish with his divorce. That reminds me that we have to do something with the legal work. I think if Rich didn’t have an answer by now he was going to need contacting his attorney this morning. By the looks of it is already the 25th. There is only 4-5 more days to get the information that Rich’s wife has demanded.
Something is going to need being done soon. Like we might need a day off to gather information. I can’t help to think that that particular pressure might have something to do with the negative string we’ve been on.
March 29, 2009
Donald R. Brewer
RE: Case #07 DV 347 Sharon vs. Richard
Dear Mr. Brewer,
This letter is in response to the subpoena for production of specified documents, objects or tangible things. I do not have funds available for an attorney and you have given me an unbelievably short time to collect documents. If I need an attorney, your client will need to pay for it. I’m already $100,000 in debt without real estate or any other property or savings. I believe this information to be complete and accurate and constitute good faith compliance with the materials requested by said subpoena. I would like an explanation why these documents are required by your client. None of my personal information is relevant to Mrs. P and I request my accounts remain private and confidential to her directly especially due to my mental disabilities and that confidentiality include information on medical, psychiatric and other expenses, location of my apartment and unnecessary actions that might or already have caused emotional distress.
1. I have obtained birth certificates of all three of my children Maurice, Thomas, and Joseph. The cost of obtaining these records is $45, please reimburse.
2. See #3 - personal tax returns
3. I have enclosed a copy of tax returns for the last 4 years that I could collect through having filed with H&R Block.
a. My income at this date is $46,342 Gross
b. My income at this date is $31,290 Net
c. I am paid $600 per month from Rich and these payments began after April 2, 2007
i. $450 toward rent
ii. $150 toward cable
iii. Food/groceries (I eat minimally due to gastric bypass surgery)
4. I have no interest in any partnership
5. I have no stocks and bonds
6. I have no certificate of deposit or similar instrument
7. I do not maintain canceled checks, but I have enclosed a copy of my bank statements from my current bank at First National Bank of Brookfield. I have been banking here since October, 2008.
8. I have no savings account
9. I have no safety deposit box
10. I have no real estate
11. I rent an apartment for $900 at Brookfield, IL. I will enclose a copy of the current lease.
12. Automobiles or other vehicles
a. I own a 2006 Honda CR-V purchased in October, 2008. Please find the corresponding documents.
b. I have no race/sports cars, boats and or other recreational vehicles
13. I have no life insurance
14. I have no will, trust or codicil
a. I have a pension that I don’t pay, but which my employer pays monthly 3.5% of my salary
15. I have two school loans, major medical and psychiatry debt, and varies of other
a. Wells-Fargo School Loan - $35,128.79 balance ($281.46 monthly)
b. Nelnet School Loan - $17,598.76 balance ($145.55 monthly)
c. Atletico (rehab) - $120 balance
d. Bally’s (fitness/rehab) - $50 monthly
e. Capella University - $600 balance
f. Catherines – 0 balance
g. Citizen’s Auto (car payment) - $21,431 balance ($456 monthly)
h. Comcast - $161 monthly
i. Comed - $120 monthly
j. Dell Financial Services - $400 balance
k. Dental Insurance Withdrawn from salary - $37 monthly
l. Health Insurance Withdrawn from salary - $460 monthly
m. IL Collection Service *0255 (medical debt)- $175 balance – $25 monthly
n. Il Collection Service *7973 (medical debt) - $200 balance - $25 monthly
o. Kohl’s – 100 balance
p. Medical Business Bureau (psychiatric services debt) - $13,635 balance - $100 monthly
q. Medical Recovery Specialists (medical debt) - $1010 balance - $50 monthly
r. MJK Investments (rent) - $900 monthly
s. Netflix - $18 monthly
t. Rhapsody Music - $13 monthly
u. Sprint - $156 monthly
v. State Farm Insurance (Car insurance) - $75 monthly
w. University of IL – Chicago (UIC)- *8423 (medical debt) - $1164 balance $50 monthly
x. UIC - *0758 (medical debt) – searching - $50 monthly
y. UIC - *2801 (medical debt) – searching - $50 monthly
z. UIC - *9399 (medical debt) – searching - $50 monthly
aa. UIC - *2554 (medical debt) – searching - $40 monthly
bb. UIC – *0753 (medical debt) – searching - $50 monthly
cc. Walgreens Home Care (wheel chair & C-Pap machine) $52 monthly
dd. Walgreens Medicine - $95 monthly
16. I have no contracts
17. I have no bank accounts in foreign countries
Please be advised that I have mental disorders which affect my ability to process and cope. Please do not include me unnecessarily or for any length of time. I’m considered to be emotionally vulnerable.
Sincerely,
Ann M. Garvey
Cc: Rich
Rich’s Attorney
Life is sometimes sticky
Good morning. This is me again … We’re on to a new day. We had troubles jump starting this one though. We got up just before 5 am and then about 10 after we laid down while Rich was in the shower. But, then we fell asleep and we couldn’t get ourselves up. Rich came in to get us up several times and I don’t think we were being cooperative. Then we finally yes in 5 minutes, but that frustrated him and he had to go to work.
About 6:15 am he called on the phone and by then we were being a little more cooperative. I really hate when our system puts Rich at these frustration points.
We try not to be crabby, cuz all the time we know he’s pushing us because he’s a good guy. So, this time we were able to have switched out the parts enough to get someone more of equal stature. We told him respectfully that we’d get up and we did … he was just making sure that happened and that we got our medicine. We took the medicine first just to assure we go forward in a positive direction.
See that’s the thing about Rich … he like never gives up. Today he has got a very busy schedule. He has to prepare for a Department of Labor inspection on Monday, plus regular work, plus he’s got a baseball game tonight and he’s going to need getting a new set of pants. I don’t know what else he has to do, but I do know that we don’t want to be an issue on the bad part of his day.
We’ve only got about 15 minutes left now before we go to work. We have to look at things optimistically like we can do this. Yesterday wasn’t such a red hot day.
Dr. Marvin ended up calling after the note we’d sent on not doing what we were supposed to be doing. It was kind of a long discussion. It’s hard to say what he was saying, but I know he was talking to parts that were being uncooperative. I think we were giving him a hard time. Some of this has to do with being mad. I think he was saying that we could be mad, but it wasn’t ok to be taking it out on us and that we were doing that by not taking the medicine.
We were talking though and that was a good thing. Not to say there weren’t long pauses in-between as we were trying to think things through. It’s just that our thinking wasn’t happening very good. We were being really stubborn. I’m not sure how it ended up but I know that after awhile … maybe like an hour we wrote him back and told him that we’d asked Rich to pick-up the medicine on his way home from his mothers. That seemed to be the compromise we needed to start things out.
We had called Rich and asked and he didn’t seem to have a problem with that. I think we all know that when we can get to the part that we will and do take the medicine … the bad stuff happens less and we’re more likely to be back to our more normal can get things done parts. I feel bad though for what we put people through in the meantime.
I can remember an evaluation being done … someone asking how you feel and the response being either down or cranky. We’re pretty careful about trying not to get our feelings on other people. We have a tendency to isolate ourselves at times like this. So in this situation it was good for us that Rich was away for most of the night. We chilled out by watching some odd TV. We kept hitting buttons and settled for a while on some show where the family are undertakers and then for a while we were watching a show on these guys building motorcycles and then later cars. Yeah, I know … why on Earth it interested us how a motorcycle was being built. Go figure … multiplicity, yeah like right!
We seemed to be calming down, but then Rich gave us a call and let us know he was a half hour out … we tried to be ok and just be accepting, but we knew he was going to and he did push taking the medicine. He was very annoying. He just kept repeating, cmon you gotta take the medicine, you gotta take the medicine and he wasn’t leaving us alone and he had his hand out to help us out and every time we had a contradictory thought or grumble he just kept pushing adamantly. I really hate being ground down like this. It doesn’t feel fair or that there is another way to escape except to do what he says just to get him to leave us alone.
We did take the medicine and we laid back on the couch as he settled in. He turned on his fishy shows and we laid on the couch for about a half an hour until the angry feelings left. Then we got up and laid behind Rich on the other couch and we massaged his back until we finally fell asleep. I love my fishy guy … but things still are hard.
Now thought it’s about 7 am and we gotta get going. Chief isn’t going to like it that we move our arms away from the keyboard, but I know we can’t give ourselves time to think of anything besides going to work. Ok, so then … let’s get on with it, ya know?!
Ok, so it didn't turn out to be a good day :(
AHA! It’s us and we got a little more time. We called in our medicine about 45 minutes ago and we’re waiting for Dr. Marvin to get in to fill it. Yes it IS a legitimate excuse. Rich had found out that we didn’t get it yet and he wasn’t overly happy about that.
Ok, it was anti-depression medicine and I’m sure that didn’t help the last two days, but I know it wasn’t the entire problem - just maybe some of it.
Hmm, well, ok that’s enough of that … it is getting fixed as fast as we can afford.
I’m feeling a bit tired right now and I’m not sure why that’s happening. We fixed the second pot of coffee before Rich left so he could take a cup. It won’t all get drank, but hoping that it helps.
As to last night beside the call … We were watching two shows with Rich … one was Ice Age and the other was Shaggy Dog. We didn’t see too much of Shaggy Dog, but we finished the cartoon one. He had been taping both and going back and forth to avoid the commercials.
I got backed up on the cable bill, so that was like needed to do some extra backrubbing to get out of that jam … pshwoo! I’m working myself to the bone over here!
I had noted talking to both Joe and Maury. Joe had said something about the roles that he and Cari had been taking at his place. About then is when we were thinking Rich and us have roles too. We make a lot of mess-ups and then Rich has to be patient. Joe thought he did that role too. *Sigh*
So where are we today? I think after we get to work, we are really going to need concentrating on the work stuff – especially CARF. We’ve got to make some kind of progress that we can see. I think we’ should bring back the case too, but maybe leave at home some of the papers to be typed into the Paper Tiger. We remembered too today to bring the downloaded flash drive with the Spring Fling pictures. We should have done it yesterday, but we got behind. With 47 sheets, I’m not sure if sister is going to hang them all, but there are a lot that could get hung up.
I always like when they get printed out … a few clients who’d found me yesterday asked if they could get copies. I’m not so sure of that, but maybe we can send some of the one’s I print out to them after Sister gets done with them. We’ll see … I did it one year with Halloween pictures, but you can imagine with over 200 shots, it could get time consuming and costly.
I don’t think there’s much more to yesterday or today. I only saw Sr. Theresa for a moment right as she was locking up doors last night right before 4 pm. She wanted to know if I were still there because apparently I’d left on a light on Friday night. *Sigh*
She wasn’t in her office when I came by in the morning and I avoided meeting people all day, because we’d been feeling so terrible. We ended up making a list of things pro and con toward suicide. The list ended up sounding like this.
Pro-suicide:
I could stop thinking
I don’t have money for a lawyer
I’m an idiot
Rich would be better off without me
Maybe it’s a good thing there’s only “one” of me
I’m having trouble caring properly
I wouldn’t get anyone’s anger on me
It hurts to be here
Rich wouldn’t have to worry about me
Life could stop being so hard
I wouldn’t have to be responsible
His family would be able to leave me alone
Someone could publish my book better without me
Rich’s wife would be happy
I wouldn’t have to worry about meeting his kids
It would seem pretty easy to do
Con-suicide
Rich would be lonely
My body would decay and be eaten by bugs
I would miss rich
We could just end up again I the hospital
I’d never see my boys again
I wouldn’t be able to help Rich
Dr. Marvin would be frustrated
None of my friends would be happy
The client’s wouldn’t be happy
I’d be taking the easy way out
Rich’s lawyer wouldn’t have time to figure things out
Rich trusts me
I would for SURE never get my house
Sr. would be pretty furious
Rich would get mad at me
It would hurt
No one could live happily ever after
Rich and I talked about the list and he said that I had very good reasons against suicide and NOTHING worthwhile for it. Dr. Marvin didn’t hear the list, but he thought that it was going down a wrong path. But, it’s where our minds had taken us.
I don’t mean to be taking this so lightly that I don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation.
Hmm, thinking now how nice it would be to take off the day. There would be no reason to it, because I’m pretty sure it would make Rich growly, but then we’d be able maybe to go back to bed for a while, maybe write and then do some work at home. We could do all that. I know that Rich wouldn’t be happy though. Maybe not sister either.
How’d we get so tired? I think we could blame it on the kitty for putting us in that wavy mood. I think SHE done it!
Hmm, we’ll have to consider this seriously, but we’ll give it a little more time.
I’m not so sure about why we need the extra writing time. I know I love to have it, just haven’t thought out what we could be talking about … you know though that has never stopped us before. We’ll come up with something.
Ok, that was that … I laid down and took a nap that lasted 1 ½ -2 hours. I was woken by a phone call. You can guess who that might have been. *Sigh* I think he is going to call back, but we’re pretty sure we’re not going to work. I don’t have a good reason though. I should go and see if I can pick up the medicine, but that doesn’t feel like my top priority. Sometimes I want to just stay and do me stuff.
But, you know this place … I’ve been here 100’s of times.
The best deal would be to get orientated in business dealings. That would mean that I work on CARF. I think that what I’ll shoot for as a goal is to do a half day work and a half day home. That means that I’ve got 1 ½ hours til noon to write and stuff and then after that we’ll work on CARF. I’d like to see if we COULD do this. You know me well enough that I might lay out a plan that becomes undoable at the time, but it’s the best we are going to do for the time being.
We checked on the tablet and it’s still not shipped. We know the order officially was going to go in for Monday and that it would take a day or two prior to shipping. It’s somewhere else and to be tax free it has to be shipped to them first and then mailed from their location. We’re hoping by the end of the day it ships and then it would be here late Wednesday or early Thursday. It is taking a very long time to get this across … I hope my patience benefits us in some manner.
Rich didn’t want us sitting at home today, but I don’t think we can accommodate that. We need a day to recover and better today than yesterday. Yesterday I couldn’t have said before if we weren’t going to do something negative. But, today just feels really tired. I’m still feeling down and looking for a way that I can help myself and Dr. Marvin had recommended writing as our adult alternative.
It’ll be ok, right?
We’re back, but I’m not sure how long I’ve been gone. It’s now about 11:30 am. We were last trying to get back on line. I’m not sure why we were booted I think we’d been looking at Hollywood pictures … you know of get together, break-up or having children together? I just know that sometimes we do this. We don’t usually know the players, but there’s a feeling of always searching for someone that we might know and connect to.
I don’t know what’s wrong with us and I hate it when I find that we’ve wasted time like this, but I guess to be the most fair we need to let those things happen for whichever parts of us need that kind of time. I’m guessing it’s to help unwind? I don’t know.
Hmm, I think Rich’s wife is online too. I didn’t know she was on our buddy list … my guess is that it happened back when she sent us that email after they first broke up. Yeeks! Let’s steer away from that!
I ate some crackers sometime, but now my tummy feels scratchy. Well not my tummy exactly, but well I don’t know how to explain it, except I’m probably fulled-up.
I’m thinking that I could do with another nap. I wonder if it be ok that we wrote to Dr. Marvin first … that might help.
Ok … now it’s later. It’s about 12:45 pm. I feel quiet, but up. I’m not sure why I woke up … maybe because Chief was giving himself a bath on my chair that I’d been laying on.
Hmm. We thought a fudgsicle would help, but we finished it and now have a note from Dr. Marvin to deal with. We had told him –
Dear Dr. Marvin,
This is me. I'm home today. We had problems going to work or picking up the medicine. We felt very tired and worn out. We took one nap and we think we're going to take another now. Trying to be more positive. Feel down.
Ann
He said back –
Hi Ann,
Its understandable that you would be feeling down given the situation. Most people would be. I am pretty concerned that you have been without your antidepressant for several days now. That is not going to help and could actually make it much worse. Going without it would lead to low energy and poor concentration. If there is a way to get to the pharmacy or to have Rich help you with this, it would be important to pick up. You don’t need the depression recurring to get in your way of all the things you have going for you.
-Dr. M
So now if I don’t go it’s like breaking an almost order, but we still don’t feel like going nowhere or taking care of it. Rich says we get belligerent and that’s sort of what it feels like now … we don’t wanna do it. I don’t care anymore.
Dear Dr. Marvin,
I don't seem to care too much right now. We took our second nap, but don't want to do anything. I feel stubborn and cranky. And, like I don't wanna do anything! You can't make me!
Me
We tried to lie down, but only made it about 10 minutes, because now we’re thinking too much again and we’re CRANKY! He just can’t tell us to do everything and then we just do it … that wouldn’t be fair. He’s always got to be the smart one. Sometimes people get sick and tired of that. HMPF!
I’d rather think of something else. AND NO WE’RE NOT GOING TO CALL RICH!
It’s none of his business and beside he’s going to see his mother today so he can’t help anyway. He’ll just make us feel worser.
Hmm, I don’t know what to do … I don’t like doing the Marinemoms stuff or the Facebook stuff. I don’t think I like doing anything. Well besides I think fudgsicles are a good deal.
I don’t want to do anything that’s responsible. I’m more in the mood to kick a cat … but I don’t like to do that either, cause it’s not fair to the poor kitty. But, it’s sorta like that.
We still took our other medicine, just not the one medicine. Sometimes when I don’t take medicine I think wow. Is this what I’m really like. I feel sometimes like we’re a terrible person, but then we tell that to Rich and Rich says no, you’re a nice person and then sometimes we get back to being a nice person.
I don’t think Rich is going to come home soon, because I think he was leaving early in the afternoon to go out west. That means I got some time to run about being rotten. I just gotta stay away from Dr. Marvin. He’s sneaky and I’m not so sure I like that about him. Well iffn a person was really sneaky that be good cuz sometimes it’s ok to get in a little trouble. Not the kind that would be hard to clean off the floor or anything, but sorta like that.
As far as we think about stuff like suicide … I don’t think that much of it. I’m more the kind that just wants to hide and hang out. I’m a little nervous about getting too far from the computer though cuz I don’t know if Dr. Marvin is going to be mad at me cuz we’re being bad. I don’t like it when people get mad at me.
Maybe we should try to go back to bed some more. I would like to lie on Rich’s bed. Sometimes I miss him, but not when he’s the boss all the time.
Last night he said we could massage his back s we did that for a long time and then we massaged other things and you know how that sorta thing goes. Hehehe. Ok, well THAT brought a smile to my face. But, not many more smiles are hiding in there.
I’m pretty sure. Hmm, I wonder if we could watch that movie that Rich didn’t want to see about the bear. But if we did that we wouldn’t be able to be at the computer. Sure will be nice when we get the new computer then we can lay on the couch at the same time as having the computer AND the TV. Somehow it seems we’ve got to be able to touch the computer iffn we’re going to be ok.
I’d just like to say for the record that WE’RE not scared of Dr. Marvin. I hope he doesn’t think he can call here, cause we didn’t say that he could call. I don’t think he will, but then if he did he might say we’re in trouble. But, we’re doing just fine. I’m just a little crabby now. I’m just going to see if that movie might be on … and maybe we’ll have a little bit MORE fudgisicle … since we are at home today with nothing too much to do, hmm?
Not that Coast is clear ... just safer
Good morning. This is us. Things seem to be slowing down a little though things are still somewhat discombobulated. We need to discuss for a moment the situation with Rich’s daughter. She and Rich talked a bit last night and from what Rich says … she had found the stuff over at Obesity Help.
Hmm, we were just over there again and we erased what was left over there. We had erased the blog part from when we’d figured out that might be where Jillian was getting the information. But, we’d forgotten about the pictures part. We might have gotten one set erased before, but we’d forgotten the second set. We skimmed over the comments under the pictures this time. I felt bad that they had to go, but I know that it wouldn’t be a good thing to have them up where they could be shown about.
I felt bad though in that they’d done such a good representative job of kinda showing things about who we are. Being over at OH.com was a part of our life we’d gone through, but we didn’t want to confuse the issues more than was necessary. We were pretty sure Jillian would have a hard time not showing them to her mother. As it is we know that she’s done a lot of printing from the site, so she might have that set of pictures anyway. If so then it will be done as it is. Nothing to stop that.
Reading over the comments to the pictures, there is nothing that I’m embarrassed about. They had explained a good part of my life and how we think of ourselves pretty well. I wish I would have read the blog part a little better before having erased all that to have gotten a perspective of what she’d been reading. But, I still believe in there being a God and that things usually work out for the better if there is patience enough.
Rich talked to Jillian last night and from what he said it was the OH.com site that gave her those couple hundred pages she printed. I was very relieved that she hadn’t found the big blog, though I know that some day in her and our future … she’ll have access to all that was written here. The reason my life has been as secretive as it is is because I don’t want to upset Rich and how he’s chosen to take care of his family. I know that he loves them dearly and would do about anything to save them harm.
Why he ended up with me … it’s hard to tell. We asked him last night why he puts up with us, because we are so much trouble. He said something about long ago he’d figured out we were pretty ok. Yes, yes … he’s a mushmellow!
Mmm … just got done with a 10-12 minute petting of Missy – I know when she needs extra support, because she will do that piranha thing going from one side of me to the other while meowing. I find if I just put my coffee cup aside and tap on the table to invite her up, that she will hop up, pace a little then let me pet her for a short while as she is purring madly. Hehehe we’ll just call her super kitty!
Eventually, though I need to type or get some fresh coffee or some such nonsense.
*Sigh* Sometimes like this we almost fall asleep with her she gets us so relaxed.
*Double Sigh*
Not sure where we left off … but as to Rich’s daughter and the OH.com blog … well I think most of that is gone now. It was a little sad because it had been like our calling card.
We had figured out a way to back up our main blog – both parts yesterday. It took us all afternoon to do it. It was pretty painstaking, but not as bad as it had been while editing in that we didn’t have to read it all while doing it. I left it on my work computer, but today I’ll have to get it over to my flash drive and then to the home computer … and when the new computer comes in we will back it up there too. I don’t really know how much space we have on the flash drive – I know we erased some stuff not sure how much though.
We kept track of how many pages there were as we were copying/pasting over to Word.
Most of it was done month to month, but the older AMW was copied over and fixed per year. In total for that writing effort it had been 4,555 pages long. That’s a lot of writing. You might imagine then how crazy we’d gotten when we thought that Jillian could have had a means of erasing it. That’s like 10 books!
It was a lot of work not to have backed up. So maybe the circumstance of needing to figure out a way will be beneficial to us in the long run.
We still didn’t get the whole of it backed up in that we just got a couple of the smaller blogs backed-up. There didn’t seem to be an efficient way to be doing that because it wasn’t copy/pasting correctly. I’m not sure what was happening with that, but given time we’ll try to finish that all up today as well. It had gotten though to the point that we were backing up just one entry at a time and that particular journal was 454 entries long. It was taking then TOO long. Hopefully we’ll come up with something.
I can’t believe we’ve written 4,555 pages on Ayn’s Multiple World. And that’s that little a number because the pictures didn’t transfer over from the old AOL journal.
Let’s see that’s then like over 2 pages per day every day for the last 6 years.
That’s pretty something I would think!
The process and result enabled us to get past our fears not only of someone erasing our work, but as well in putting things in proportion. If she had copied a couple hundred pages like she stated, that would mean she’d only had access to less than 5% of our work. It’s still substantial, but left us with some privacy for the time being.
Like we had said Rich had talked to her last night. He said afterward that she’s curious about the multiplicity and had said she’d watched Sybil and wanted to know if it was anything like that. Of course Rich had to say no. EVERYone has seen Sybil and uses it as the basis for comparison. I’m pretty used to it by now and think it’s kinda funny.
Rich said also that she thought we write very well and that she’d read the whole thing so probably knows more about me than Rich … well, I’m not sure which of them made that statement, but certainly one of the two. Man! We’re the ones that wrote 4555 pages and even WE don’t understand us!
Rich and his daughter are making some kind of compromise and we complained a bit because while those two were working out my life, they were neglecting that I might have something to do with it. Jillian is saying that her mother wants three things. First to make sure her family money didn’t go over to us, second that my children aren’t Rich’s and third wants straight information on how long Rich and I’ve been together – with some side information that states he is living with us.
Some of that might seem somewhat reasonable … but, it still means a breach of my privacy. Rich is saying that he can arrange all that without asking me first or assuming that I’d want all that information out to her. Why would I want her to know what I spend my money on?
We talked to both Joe and Maury last night and we’d mentioned it to Thom too when we had IM’d with him yesterday. All three boys know that their paternity is being questioned by her as well as the boys father knowing about it. I still think this is bordering on crazy. That was one of Jillian’s things is to appreciate that through the writing that we’d only gotten together with Rich in October of 1994.
She’s still questioning the part that this has been happening since she was about 13 years old.
I can’t do anything about that. I do know that during those years Rich thought it better for his family that they didn’t know of the relationship and that he was going to raise them with the mother the best he could. I think they discussed whether or not that was a good idea, but in general the past is past.
Some of the pictures viewed over on the OH.com site showed some inside our house views. It had shown where the computer was, the arrangement of the living room, and the balcony. Jillian seemed surprised that she could see so much into her Dad’s life and I think that was actually good for her. She’s asked so many times to understand his living situation better. It probably helps her with mental images of knowing that her father is ok. I’m glad for her on that part. But, I think that’s more relevant to her than possibly her brothers.
Rich said he was going to talk to Chris by the weekend of a few things like how long we’d been together and him living with us. That’s probably a healthy set of things to tell him.
I’m not sure what a raucous it is going to involve. Almost nearly everything the wife takes as a personal affront on her. She like begs for information and then when she gets it she’s too overwhelmed and needs lots of extra support. I guess that’s not too much different from us though.
Yesterday we were on the phone with Dr. Marvin several times due to the suicidality. We’re still not sure why it happens, but know that it’s in part due to our being overwhelmed and not having more concrete patterns for handling things. He said thought that we handled it better yesterday than we’d handled it in the past and that we’d really gotten much further into our trust of the situation being only temporary.
He was trying to advocate that we should be mad at Jillian for the invasion of privacy. We couldn’t get mad at her because we saw her doing something we’d do the same our self if given the opportunity. But, Dr. Marvin was saying that we were blaming ourselves and taking it out on ourselves self-destructively. That can’t be a real good idea. He encouraged that we continue to write about it as our adult avenue of responsibility in handling the situation. So, of course here we are … as in all those other days.
We still have to view things as if Jillian or her brothers or mother was reading this journal right this moment. That’s still a little overwhelming. Yesterday for the first time we addressed Jillian in the work. If I were to do the same here I’d want her to know that we don’t mean her or her family any ill will.
I guess to explain my side of how things have turned out these last more than a dozen years, would be to say that Rich and us have had an understanding all this time that I wouldn’t interfere with his life independent of me, nor him me – with special concern over the families.
I think if you’d read back far enough ago, you would know that my boys had learned of the situation from me about a dozen years ago. This was because my relationship with them is more open – most likely because we weren’t in the same situation of Rich as being married. For us telling the boys came 4 years into the relationship had begun. The final divorce had been put through after over 3 years of separation.
We’d seen Rich only on the nights that they were with their father. There were a lot of differences back then that we won’t go into now again, but the main thing is I handled things with my boys and he handled things with his kids each as we wanted for our own families. I gave that much privacy to Rich … because I believe he knew more about raising his own family than I did. This is not to say I always agreed with him. Some things like the homosexuality were a lot harder for him to relate to than it had been me. I think we also each had a helpful perspective of family life in general from having been one step removed, but always the decisions on what and when things were to happen each rested with ourselves for our own families.
So anyway … that’s about it for the morning. I’m grateful for another day of being here and we’re hoping this last bunch of self-destructive thinking can be put to rest. I don’t think we’ve changed much in that we’re still coping badly with some of our bigger problems, but at least now we’re much more conscious of what’s happening and we have our help in line. I’m grateful for the time that Dr. Marvin gave us today and hoping we can give him a short note today … just saying that we are ok and that we’ll talk about what happened on Thursday. That would be a good place to be, right?
