He’s at least getting better about holding hands as we go through the parking lot at places like the grocery store and the mall, but a lot of the time he wants to be a “big boy” and walk by himself and then blithely steps out practically in front of traffic. There’s been at least once instance of me twisting my ankle pulling him out of the way.

One of the current things we’re working on by both his pediatrician’s suggestion and the school systems is that he needs to know not just his first name but his last name, mine and my husband’s name and his phone number, possibly his street address too, but I’m doing them slowly, this past week we’ve been working on him knowing his first and last name, then I’m going to through the phone number into the mix later on after I know he’s got his full name on.

He seems to have picked up the last name thing pretty quickly although yesterday when we were coming back from the bank we had a long discussion about whether or not our room mates and his two friends had the same last name as we did and why not. He seems to have gotten that it’s a family thing for the most part, but therefore doesn’t understand why his Gran (my Mum) doesn’t have the same last name.

Then I got back just in time to let Emmit in before he ran off again as we needed to take him to the vets for a follow-up on his legs. I don’t know that I actually mentioned on here before but a little over a week ago, Kore was lifting Emmit up as he wasn’t able to jump up to where we keep the cat’s food dishes and realized that he had a huge hole on his back right leg. We all freaked out because it looked like he’d been shot or something, so we got everything together quickly and bolted down to the vet’s office to get him checked out. It turned out it was an abscess, that had ruptured. So, we were given treatments, antibiotics and a cleaning solution that we had to use on him.

A few days later another opened up on the other side. So, back to the vet she whisked him and was told to continue the treatments. The hope was that the bad stuff would drain out of the wounds and then they would start to heal up, and could bring him back today so that he could get sewn up. Well, the second wound was healing up nicely by itself, but the original, it looks as though when he was initially attacked the wound healed up but caught some of his fur in there, and so was aggravating the wound and it wasn’t healing.

So, today they took him into surgery. Opened up the wound, got the remaining nastiness out and sewed him up.

He’s in a lot better spirits now, but then he’s had a dose of pain medicine, and while he seemed in decent spirits. He was a bit lethargic and generally hid up at the top of the stairs when he was in the house. Since we’ve been back he’s been running around the house a little, and even ran around outside; but between the appointment and the surgery we wound up at the vet for about six hours on and off; but Emmit is looking a lot better now, and there is much relief in our household.

In good news the wall on Z’s room is finished and now painted so it’s not nearly so clear that the wall wasn’t always there. We also have the door attached but it doesn’t have a door handle yet and the room itself needs to be cleared out and vacuumed before they can start bringing his furniture in. There’s some talk that’ll start today if Z can borrow a large enough vehicle to move things with.

Today I’ve tasked myself with slowly but surely cleaning things up a bit more. We’ve had an ant invasion in the living room which seems to be because there have been some under chair soda spills. Thanks to cans getting lost when we move the couch backwards and forwards to do the Wii Fit. I’m intending to get back into that today also though I’ve resolved to only actually weigh myself once a week, the constant up and down with the fluxes day to day is very disconcerting.

Munchkin has been being very trying today. He got to play games on the PlayStation for several hours the other day because we needed to keep him occupied to do the painting so he’s very frustrated that he’s not being allowed to play them a lot today and that he’s not supposed to play with the steam mop. At least he wants to help clean. Hopefully I can set him on a less dangerous task.

I tend to spiral out of control with these things.

I raced down to the bank this morning and deposited $20 hubbie had found in and around his dresser left over from a special detail he’d been given. Then finally after several tries I was able to talk to someone at the bank who assured me that we won’t get any more overdrafts because they only charge the fee if the overdraft goes over $10.01. We were at $9.24.

Despite all my anger at the bank I actually thanked her for letting me know that and then hung up. At least we’re not going to get charged another $35. I’m so thankful those refunds actually posted otherwise we would have been in the negatives by about $20 and then been charged.

I’m thoroughly grateful to the friends who have helped us out over the past few days, pre-paying me for commission work not yet finished and all the rest of it.

I’m hoping with Jay returning, who seems to have a slightly more zen attitude about all these things–see his recent advice about all the crap. We can find some balance and be less self-loathing and self-punitive when things like this happen.

In the mean time I’ve set the bank to send us text messages daily about our account balance, and if the balance gets below a certain amount, and have set the bank to not allow the debit card to accept charges if we don’t have enough to cover it. I’m also looking to see if there are some different local banks we can take our money to. Several people I know in other areas have spoken of these fabled things called “Credit Unions” where overdraft fees are only $5, and they don’t charge you for transferring money from savings to checking to cover overdrafts.

In the mean time I’m reminded also that this is not the first time things have been this way. We’ve had to delay/split bills before. The mortgage company doesn’t penalize that unless you don’t pay the whole thing before the 15th. I forgot that hubbie actually gets paid this Friday and not next Friday, so we’ll be fine to pay the three remaining bills before the 1st, and then if we have to split the mortgae we can because he will get paid again around the 7th.

This also gives me time to hopefully get some more commissions in. I have at least two to finalize and collect on. Things do come together. I just wish Bank of America didn’t get $100 out of this whole mess. I hate paying people who cause me stress.

This started a major panic/clean up of the house. I’d been wanting to clean up our bedroom anyway, because we have a ton of clothes over the floor again and I feel as though I’m fighting a losing battle. I suddenly understand why everyone used to make a big fuss about my room when I was growing up, though after living with my ex who was so slovenly we wound up with silver fish and mold and roaches in the sink and things like that I’ve been messy but never that bad. However, this is three times in less than a week that something hubbie needed for work has gone missing.

So, I’m done, on that score. the room is going to be tidy from now on damnit and he is going to help me.

However, the fear issue in question is the fact that I got very freaked out about the prospect of the keys being missing. We were turning the house upside down, some of this with Kore’s help trying to find the keys and it got to the point where she was going, “They keys CAN’T be in the house. They must be in his pants or in his bag or something with him. Stop looking.” and I would stop for a short while and then I would think of somewhere else to go through and check. We went through his car twice, and even through the things I had put in the shed earlier in the day.

I was freaking out because I thought he would get fired, and also because in my memory there was a time of him being really angry because I had left the keys in my purse and he could have gotten fired.

Anyway, he gets back with the keys, apparently they were on the roof his car. Some place we hadn’t thought to check and couldn’t see because it was dark out. When he pulled up in my car he’d seen them winking at him. He was concerned because I was freaked out, and I explained to him that I was worried because he would get fired, and how important the keys were because he yelled at me about them before.

He does this double-blink thing, like what? when? and I repeat and he goes, “Yeah, I remember you doing that, but when have I ever yelled at you that way? The two times I got that mad I left and came back later after I calmed down. Does that even sound like me?”

And I pause and I think and I’m going, “Did I get my wires crossed somewhere?”

And he goes, “Does it sound like me?”

And then I realize and say, “No, that sounds like the way Ami always perceived you…because she always felt like you hated her…” *head-desk* so here I was freaking out and falling into those old patterns of excess responsibility, to the point that I was ignoring my own needs (not eating dinner) because I would feel guilty if I could have found the keys and didn’t and he got in trouble. Kore tried several times to point out to me that hubbie was the one who lost the keys and should therefore find them, that it was on him, but I persisted, it became a vendetta.

I realize in the light of morning and in light of the talk that D and I had afterwards that it was partially my mis-perception. He was upset that I left the keys in my purse and left my purse outside and he did say that if they went missing he would have been fired, but angry responses from anyone that I care about have tended in the past to explode in my mind and become these huge balls of fury. There’s a tendency to dwell on the fact that I have caused this anger and it is my fault and that I should do everything in my power to avoid something like that in the future. It’s this same issue that has me constantly feeling as though I’m a lousy mother and am going to screw the munchkin up somewhere, despite all the positive experiences he has and we have together.

This also reminds me that I still and potentially always will have things I need to work on. I just have to find ways to sort them out myself.

We really hadn’t realized how much we rely on a group of online friends for support until we could not have access to them. It’s like having ipods and then losing all your music, in a way, maybe that’s a bad analogy. I mean, I know the friends are still there, but I can’t talk to them. We no longer have a phone that can call some of them given they’re in other countries, and others don’t have phones or we don’t know the phones and snail mail letters take so long to get to them. We have local friends and family, of course, but there are some things that just can’t be discussed with them the same way, because it would take too long to explain all the back history and the back story which the online ka-tet already know.

Anyway the end of the week has seen things coming together a lot better, which is good. We managed to finally get the taxes filed and had the pleasant surprise that rather than only getting $30 back we’re actually getting around $200. The paperwork has already been approved by the IRS and we should get our refund around our wedding anniversary which is nice. Then an online friend has offered to help me out with the computer issue, so I should only be without a computer for a couple of days which is just so wonderful; and right now I’m catching up on things before Kore takes her computer up to G’ville for a week given she’ll be on spring break as of Monday, and a friend is over working on our tile.

Mum and I got to have a nice lunch out yesterday. She wanted to go for sushi so I recommended Kiku Steakhouse where my FIL had taken us several days earlier for his birthday, and I must say we had the best gyoza I’ve ever had and the sushi, well the last time I’ve had sushi that good was when we went there the Monday before.

I’ve found out that our old desktop may yet get fixed, but I’m not holding my breath with it. It tends to give the illusion of working and then die again a few short days later, at least we may be able to get the rest of the information off it before it does. Fingers crossed. It’s just a matter of having the money to pay the guy who is trying to fix it ;_; if that’s the case. Given what little we had left this week has gone for grout and tile spacers and twelve 16-inch tile squares.

Musculature is an issue because of the fibromyalgia. Excessive strain on my muscles becomes worse for me because my body is unable to repair damaged muscle tissue as quickly as others might, so I have to be very careful and slow when it comes to exercising like that because those microscopic tears that everyone experiences when they move around from day to day and exercise do not heal and just get worse if I don’t get enough sleep, which I often don’t.

However I realize that there are other psychological issues which impede me on the weight frontier. On the basic level it’s hard to stick to a diet, it’s even harder for nine people to stick to a diet and that’s often been a chunk of my issue, if there’s just one of us alters who is not on board for the weight program it falls apart. It just takes one of us, and often times this has been Max, to go “OOOH CHOCOLATE! NOM-NOM-NOM!” and eat an entire bar or box, or make his super White Russians with kahlua and chocolate syrup as well as milk and vodka, and then there’s a general dissent because it’s “Oh, well he had candy, why can’t I?” and so on until it devolves and we’re back to snacking on junk food and being lazy about things.

Additionally I came to the conclusion that on some level there’s a desire to be unattractive. My step-father was very into thin women, and would harp on my mother to a greater extent but also me about weight. I know when I was pregnant he was very displeased that I was getting fat, and kept insisting that I should diet, even though in many ways I was eating much healthier while I was pregnant than I had before as it was important to me to make sure the future munchkin was not addicted to caffeine or born unhealthy due to something I ate or exposed him to. I stopped bleaching and dyeing my hair even, refused additional x-rays when I fractured my elbow. I didn’t eat sushi or rare meat. I didn’t drink. Max was very silent during most of the pregnancy, actually. These are things that most mothers-to-be do. They allow themselves small treats, but generally they cut back. I ate more fruit than I ever have while I was pregnant, no wonder the munchkin is such a fruit bat.

However, my condition was extremely distressing to him; and he would tell random people when we were out how displeased he was and how disgusted he was about my weight. Most people looked at him like he was off his nut. Anyway, my point is that I wonder if this has stuck with me on some level, and I’ve subconsciously not been giving weight loss my all because it makes me unattractive to him, and therefore if I do run into him again there’s less likely to be those comments about my butt or my breasts that he was so fond of, or the attempts to touch said areas, and the squeezes and the kisses. As it is I haven’t seen him since I stopped working at the gas station, and even there he had not shown up since Christmas because hubbie Had Words with him.

Though I realized this past week, that this is still giving him power over me. My fear of him is still on some level ruling my existence, and so I should stop. He does not need that power. He does not deserve that power. I deserve to, as I’ve said before, become healthy for me, and to lose weight to help me, to help there be less strain on those muscles, to help me sleep better, to have more energy and to be there for my family, to be able to run around with my son for more than five or ten minutes at a time. All those things. For that I should be healthy.

I’m glad we didn’t do that now, for various reasons. As it happened. The day that hubbie got sworn in at his PD we found out that I was pregnant with the munchkin, so that re-evaluated our priorities more than a little. We moved out from his parents house to an apartment, then went to another apartment, and then to our house. Things are pretty crappy on many fronts, but overall we’re doing well. We’re surviving, which is more than can be said for most. Hubbie has a job. He brings in a decent wage, even if it is hard for us to get by on it, and we’re once again not paying money on taxes, though we’re only getting $34 back.

We’ll have been married five years this year. It’s pretty wild and munchkin will be four in April.

I’m looking forward to the next five years though. I know we have a good plan in action for the next five years, and if all goes to plan we should have several of our credit cards paid off by then. As it is we’ve already paid off about $3000 of credit card debt which is nice to think about. I’ve also actually been able to start fiction writing again which is a real positive sign for how my mental health is going. Onwards and upwards.

Just then Mum called to say she was on her way out to pay some bills, but could she stop by and drop off her laptop first and then come back for the tutoring. I told her what was going on with the car, so she stopped by and jumped the car for me. Given I really needed to go to Walmart so that the cats wouldn’t starve and so that I could pick up more cold meds she invited me on the days journey with her saying we could stop by Walmart while going round and about for her errands. So I asked if she would meet me at the mechanic so I could drop the car off. While the car being dead isn’t something he could fix (she just tends to do that if she’s not driven every other day) her dying reminded me that she was almost 1000 miles over for her oil change which isn’t good as old as she is.

So, plan in place we set off, after I picked up a few things that were leftover from our neighbor’s yard sale. She invited us to pick through the leavings, which worked out in my favor because I picked up a 1 and 1/2 gallon fish tank to transfer our fish into so that I could give their 10 gallon tank a mega-clean out and major overhaul, which it has needed for some time. I’ve been so not with it the past couple of weeks that their tank evaporated down to about 5 gallons of water. So, now given there’s only two of them left they’re in their spiffy new home and will probably stay there for the duration. The filter for the mini tank is SO much quieter than the old one was even when the tank was full.

The fish in their new “penthouse”. Once I get the other cleaned out I may get some guppies for it BUT we’ll have to see, given taking care of it in the first place proved to be a chore I couldn’t entirely handle at the moment, and given they’re technically the munchkin’s fish his behavior needs to have a major overhaul before he gets any more pets. He’s been in a very Testing All Boundaries frame of mind lately.

Anyway, our day continued, we stopped by our insurance place so Mum could pay a bill there and chatted with the agent for a while catching up. She offered to do auto insurance quotes for Kore as she’s been having some issues with her former company and recently switched to what she hopes is a better one. Then we swung by SECO so Mum could pay another bill. Then she took us out to the Chinese Buffet, and I drank almost an entire pot of their Jasmine Green Tea because it was so, so good on my poor aching throat.

Then it was Walmart, where munchkin really started in on the boundary testing, much the same as he’d been doing at the mall the on Saturday, so there were stern words, punishments, apparent acceptance of limits and then more testing. At least he’s accepting that he has to hold hands in parking lots now without a huge tantrum, but he still wants to run off into the depths of stores possibly to be never seen again.

It was mathematics time after that, which is a bit strange. I haven’t done math in any capacity more than balancing a check book, which I don’t do nearly so often as I probably should, since high school. I did all my college math requirements during my senior year of high school, and being an English/Comm major didn’t have to do anything more than the CLAST while I was at Flagler. I did flirt with math briefly when I took the GRE for graduate school; but that was mostly done on auto-pilot in the sense of “someone in here knows how to do this,” and they did, and it’s generally not understood how but we did better on the math portion than the English portion by 20 points, so it worked.

The math in question is ‘pre-Algebra’ which is not really a term I recognize given in high school in England we just did “math” and when we moved to the States I was put into math courses here in Trigonometry/Analytical Geometry, then I went into Calculus and AP Calculus. I seem to be doing okay helping Mum with it (I hope). It’s a bit ‘I don’t understand the descriptive terminology but I get the theory and am hopefully explaining it okay.

We picked up my car and it’s had another issue that is probably sealing it’s death warrant, given expensive repairs don’t entirely seem worthwhile on a 13 year old vehicle. We’re discussing options. The idea of becoming a one-car family has come up before given I’m not working again, and that would save us on insurance what I’m no longer making on my paycheck.

The day finalized with me getting Kore to help me re-dye my hair; but that’s a tale for a separate post.

I’ve been having issues with my health at work, again. I spoke about the fact that I pulled out my shoulders and was having flare-ups. Despite the fact that the chiropractor sorted out my shoulder I was still having problems with the strain on my body. For the past few weeks, Kore and my husband have been concerned about the strain I was under, and my husband had spoken to me a couple of times about turning in my notice.

Last week both he and I and Kore and I had long talks about the problems I was having and the earnings versus cost and I was leaning towards the fact that it was not worth it, but Sunday cemented that for me. I worked a short shift on Friday and was very sore all through Saturday. Then I worked a full shift on Sunday and by noon I was in a lot of pain. I was trying to put that on a combination of things, fighting off a cold, it being “that time of the month” but the fact remains that by the time I got home I was in so much pain I went to bed, and was pretty worthless for three hours. I drug myself out of bed purely because I knew that I needed to eat, and I was fairly out of it for the rest of the evening.

So, that cemented it for me. This can’t go on. I psyched myself up to go talk to my boss on Monday forgetting that her standard days off are Sunday and Monday. Boss rarely answers her phone when she’s not at work, and doesn’t seem to get voice mail messages, and I didn’t want to leave her a note or write her an email, because that’s very impersonal and also she has issues sometimes with other people at the job reading her messages, so I didn’t want to risk her finding out from someone else before me. I was able to talk to her yesterday and she was very understanding. I told her straight out that I was going to have to turn in my notice and when she asked why I explained that I was having flare-ups again and I didn’t want to be calling in sick when I was only scheduled for a few shifts a week, and she said she appreciated that because the type of job that I was working it’s hard to get someone else to come in if you can’t work your shifts, it’s easier to not schedule me at all.

When I called today to check on my schedule I hadn’t been scheduled, which I had anticipated from the way my boss was talking when I explained things to her. She said she wants me to be able to be well, and once I am if I don’t have another job she’ll have a place to me. I wanted to check though because I didn’t want to assume that she wasn’t taking into account the two weeks notice.

But as of this week I’m free of the store, and just that relief of stress makes me feel a lot better. I dislike I don’t have anything on record though. This was just personal realization, not anything mitigated by a doctor’s stipulation. So, I don’t know what that’s going to mean with regards the disability claim. However it is something that I’ve had to do. I can’t go on losing one to two days worth of my home life for eight to fourteen hours of work.