I'm technically still working at Prairie City and Showland, as well as having started the new job last week. I'm just juggling Showland and the new job right now, because Prairie City is so laid back, that as long as I keep in touch with them and let them know what's going on, I can go back pretty much any time. I'm thinking I might have to give up Showland though, because of the requirements of Family Focus. Not that they're requiring me to, but because the hours are better spent at Family Focus. There's always overtime available, and why would I work for three hours at Showland to make what I could at Family Focus in an hour? It just doesn't make economic sense. I'm going to hold on to it as long as I can, but, quite honestly, it's not as fun as it used to be, simply because it stresses me out more than anything having to plan around that schedule for visits.
I have a few of my own clients right now. I could probably get almost my full-time hours with just these clients, because there is so much travel time involved with them. I have one family that I transport from Fulton County, then to South Bend, then back to Fulton County after the visit. That family in itself is almost a full day, and there are visits several days a week. I get reimbursed for travel time too, so I'm not complaining. I'm trying to arrange it so I actually have two days off a week, so I'm doing my best not to schedule things on Tuesdays and Saturdays. So far, I'm enjoying it, although I'm just getting started right now.
I'm worried that I'll run out of money for gas between paychecks, just because this paycheck I'm only getting paid for one week on this coming paycheck. I'll figure something out, as long as NIPSCO will work out a payment plan with me on the rest of my deposit, which is like 635.00. UGH! I absolutely, positively HATE NIPSCO!!! After that, it'll be smooth sailing...which is another reason why I'd kind of like to hang on to the Showland job, they pay every week, and that small cash infusion, small as it is, is nice, since they pay weekly instead of every other week.
One of the cool things that I've gotten to do while I was in training, was I went and ate lunch at Washington park in Michigan City before heading home. I sat in my car and teased the seagulls a bit.
Took pictures and continually sent them to James to see. I also told him the story of how I almost slipped off of the lighthouse when I was younger and dad had taken me out to it on a day when the water had splashed over the edge and made it icy. I'd actually forgotten about it until I saw the lighthouse. I walked on the catwalk out to the lighthouse, taking pictures of about everything. It was one of those experiences that was just, no other way to describe than calming. Even though it was cold, and the surf was occasionally splashing up and onto me making me wet, it was something that for me was healing in a way, something that I needed. I really wished that my family was there to share it with me, but it made me decide that we needed to go up there sometime soon. We'll probably wait until spring now though, because I don't want to have to catch one of my kids and keep them from falling off the lighthouse.
I sat and watched the surf hit the rocks for awhile, and then I went and played in the sand some.
Playing in the sand, and actually WANTING to do things like this, reminded me of one time I was visiting my dad and saw that he had painted Jeff + Cindy with a paintbrush in the garage. I remember telling him that it was immature. He just smiled and laughed at me and said "No it's not, it's love".Everything hasn't been me being alone. We took the kids (minus Alexis, who was at her dad's house) to the pumpkin patch last weekend. We went through a corn maze, and the kids rode the "cow train", went on a pony ride, used the pedal cars, and shot the corn cannon. We went on a hayride and picked some pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. We all picked green pumpkins. Even though they aren't ripe yet, they look really cool, so the kids really enjoyed picking them out.
We just carved the pumpkins on Sunday night and lit them for the first time last night, because we had to get tealight candles for them. I know that I had some out in the garage somewhere, but I couldn't find them. It was then that I also decided that I'm going to have to have a huge garage sale in the spring. I'm going to get new boxes and put things that I'm going to keep in categorized boxes, NEW boxes that aren't falling apart or full of trash. Things that go out in the yard sale are going to be given away if they don't sell, unless it's something that I really want to keep (or is too valuable to throw away, and that'll go in categorized boxes as well. Yeah, I know, it's a huge and ambitious project, but that's the only way that things are going to get cleaned up in there, as well as in the basement.
I've been working on getting the house cleaned up, a little at a time, and actually getting the kids to help. Every night they are given a plastic bag and they're supposed to fill it up with things that need to be thrown away. It's slow progress, but it's progress nonetheless, and eventually it'll just get to a maintenance stage.
I've been busy doing other things around the house too. I stained my new door the other day.
I've been scouting books to sell on Amazon and have made another 50 bucks or so. Not a huge income, but it's a nice supplemental one, good for those little extras, like pumpkin patch trips and Halloween costumes, which we went and got tonight. Alexis is going as an "emo kid", Chloe is going to be Ironman, and Calli is a bunny. Chloe is the only one who got a traditional costume. The other ones we pieced together with bits and pieces of things, which I think are the ones that are the most fun to do anyway.
Oh, more huge news is that we got another puppy. We went to the humane society and while the one that we'd all looked at wasn't there, we all found one that we could agree on. Calli still wants a beagle, but we got a Shepherd/Husky (more than likely) mix. We named him Floyd. Yes, it's after the band. We couldn't agree on a name, so we enlisted the help of the iPod. That was one we could agree on, although now I'm thinking I should've asked if we could call it Freud instead. He is so laid back, it's almost like he was trained before, but he was a stray. He does good walking on a leash and playing with the kids. He has a damaged eye, and is most likely blind in it, but it doesn't seem to affect him, unless you're coming at him with a stuffed animal that looks remotely like a dog from that side, then he goes nuts. Otherwise, he's mellow enough that the kids can walk him by themselves, he doesn't rush out the door when it's open, he jumps on people, but it's almost a gentle, greeting jump, and he's starting to learn sit and shake. He's not doing so well with the potty training, and he's prone to picking up random objects around the house and chewing on them, but he responds to someone yelling "dog!" really well. He's probably going to end up thinking that's his name.
My frustrations with Dan are fading and are now mostly because of his absence in the kid's lives. I didn't hear from him for nearly two weeks regarding getting the kids, and he said it was because he didn't want to deal with me, yet, the last interaction that we had had, was mutually respectful. It wasn't until he was reminded of how the conversation went that he realized that it was the case. He never called Calli on her birthday, nor did he bother to drop off any support last week, nor contact me regarding it. Nobody stopped him from taking them for a few hours some afternoon, but he never even though of that as an option. It bothers me because that was one thing that seemed to be the biggest deal for him, yet he doesn't seem to make any effort to see them. I didn't know what his plans were for this weekend, due to his lack of communication, so I told him that I made plans for them for Thursday and Friday night, so if he wanted them after trick-or-treating, he could have them. He then acted all hurt because I said that I had made plans. I know that if it would ever come up on court that the judge would ask him why he went without contact for so long when he was living a few blocks away, and it wouldn't be looked down upon for me making plans during visitation days we had arranged because he had voluntarily forfeited them for the previous three weeks.
I guess he's got an apartment with the girlfriend that threw him out and made him homeless a month or so ago. It's funny, because I was going through diagnostic criteria for Alexis and came across Dependent Personality Disorder. He meets six out of the eight diagnostic criteria, and only five are needed for a diagnosis. I sent him a link to it, seriously hoping that he would read it and take it to heart and start to explore some things about himself. Instead, he took it as an insult toward his girlfriend when it had absolutely, positively nothing to do with her. I was looking at his history over the past year and a half, as well as the history of when we were in a relationship. It just amazes me that he thinks so highly of himself that he can't realize that there might be more than superficial things that caused our problems.
I found out last week that while I sent money with Chloe to get her pictures taken on picture day at school, it never got to the school, so she never got school pictures taken. He says he never touched the order envelope, yet everyone here remembers it differently, that it was handed directly to him... and as a responsible parent, wouldn't you make sure that your kids had everything they needed before they walked out the door for school? I went on a rant at him about it over messenger, about how irresponsible and incompetent of a parent he is, and he's basically said that he won't speak to me without a witness. I told him to archive the conversation then, and then he said that I was harassing him. It just pisses me off that he can't even consider that it wasn't how he remembered it, especially since he completely blanked out a fairly positive interaction until he was reminded of it, and when he always said that he has a poor memory and forgets everything.
Oh, and James openly told the kids that he loved them the other night, while actually in a confrontation with Alexis. Alexis has been a real butt as of late, which I'm sure I've blogged about recently. He was explaining to her why he does the things he does, and why he physically removed her from the area when she was swinging at me and the girls and throwing things at us. It was something like "I love you, and I love Chloe and I love Calli and I love your mother, so when anything is being done to hurt any of you, I am going to do whatever I can to stop it." I think it was an epiphany for her as well. Then Calli said it this morning to him while we were all laying in bed cuddling before we got up, and Alexis said it to him tonight before she went to bed. He returned it with both of them. I've known for awhile that he's loved them, that they actually got under his skin pretty quickly, but it wasn't verbally acknowledged like that until recently. He's also showing me that it's possible to be a strict parent without being oppressive, to create a household where there are few rules, but everyone knows what is expected of them, a household where everyone willingly works together because they want to contribute to the household, not because they have to (which is exactly what I have always wanted). It's baby steps, of course, because of the way that things have been run in the house for all these years, but it's satisfying to see the progress. One of the things that made me realize that it is working, at least somewhat so far, is when Calli opened up her birthday presents, she willingly picked up her wrapping paper and boxes without even being asked, or when Alexis said that when she's 11 she's going to start babysitting so she can contribute financially to the household (which I wouldn't make her do, but it was interesting for her to say that), or when we bought their costumes and they saw the total and were all like "that was expensive". We can all work together to create an ideal household, and let the kids learn the value of togetherness. It's a later start with him than I wanted to get, but it's happening now, and it's never too late to learn.
Calli certainly seems to be happy because she says that she's never going to move out and she's going to marry Noah (her online "boyfriend", the son of an online friend of mine) and they'll both live with me and she'll buy some kids from me (which is what she thinks I do at my new job, sell kids). If she wasn't happy here and didn't feel loved and respected, then she wouldn't say that she'll never leave me... and really, the thought of her living with me forever isn't all that unappealing. I don't care if all the girls never move out, except for the fact that they'd be missing out on life experiences that we all need.
Anyway, I know that James is annoyed with me because he thought that we were going to bed several hours ago, and he won't go to bed without me. He'd rather pass out on the couch and wait until we can go to bed together, so I'm going to end this now and actually let him be comfortable instead of all hunched over in the corner of the couch.
