Itsy Bitsy Teeny Tiny Bit Concerned

My hubby is being nice. Really nice. I mean, not throwing-up-red-flags-cause-he-might-be-cheating kind of nice, but maybe-he-did-something-he-shouldn't-have kind of nice. You know, reading my diary, accidentally bleaching my favorite/only pair of jeans, that sort of nice. The I-hope-I-can-butter-her-up-before-she-finds-my-oops nice. Or, maybe I'm just paranoid.

He called me tonight and asked how my appointment went (I didn't get home till after he left for work). Then he told me he wanted to take me to the movies this weekend (not so suspicious in and of itself... UP is coming out and we wanted to see it). Then, he said he wished we weren't so pressed for time tomorrow (it's Mom's graduation) or he'd take me to the Big Mall and get me a Chocolixir from the Godiva Chocolate shop. I asked what brought on the sudden sweetness, and he told me it was nothing, really. Then he said the terrifying words... "It's nothing bad... We'll talk about it later."

Ok, so that might not mean anything at all. He might have heard some sappy song on the radio (heaven only knows I like enough of them) that got him in a sweet mood. Maybe his parents are fighting again... That always makes him try harder to show his appreciation of me. Maybe it's simply linked to his realization the other day that he handles his unhappiness at work the same way his dad does--by losing himself in his own little world and blocking out his family.

Or, maybe he did something dumb. He's got his vices--nothing serious, really, just things that make me insecure. He's made huge progress being sensitive to my insecurities since we've been married and has worked on his vices... and I'm eternally thankful for his efforts and try not to get angry when he slips up. But the fact that he has slipped up in the past makes me very aware of the signs... One of which is an effort to show me how much he appreciates and loves me.

We've had a lot of money problems lately and those problems have meant that he hasn't been able to follow through on all of his promises or do all the things he's wanted to do for me for holidays and such. I think that all this is is his way of trying to be appreciative, but being who I am, I tend to be a little suspicious.

So thanks for listening to my rambles... I'll be back again soon, maybe with pics of Mom's graduation.

It's raining, it's pouring...

...and it's bringing down trees around our ears.

We've had thirteen inches of rain in the last two or three weeks, according to the city rain gauge. We took our local drought index down five hundred points or so over the course of one weekend. It's kind of miserable being cooped up all the time but considering we were a brush fire waiting to happen, I'm glad we've finally got some rain.

The problem is that we live across the street from this little swamp. Bay head, marshland, whatever you wanna call it, it has tons of trees and low-lying land. The edge of it is only about twelve feet from the front of my home. And one of the central features of this bay head was an old, dead tree that stood out kind of in the middle of it. It stood taller than any of the other trees, and birds loved to perch on it because of its height. We had some smaller maple and banana and other trees out there, but nothing like the old dead tree. I've kinda wondered about it for a while, wondered how strong it was and whether or not a good storm would bring it down.

Well, about an hour and a half ago we had a little spontaneous rainstorm. Winds were really high and rain was just pouring. There was one clap of thunder that seemed pretty close, and about fifteen minutes later, we heard a pop and a crash. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened, but come to find out that old tree had fallen. If it had been six inches taller it would have taken out my neighbor's van, which was parked in front of his house. There's shards (yes, SHARDS) of tree laying everywhere out in the road. If you can imagine someone dropping a delicate glass cup on a tile floor, that's pretty much what happened to the tree.

Part of the problem is that there was also a light pole right out front of my house with a power line run to it (not connected to the residential power, thankfully!). When the tree fell, it took out the power line, so we have a live wire laying out there in the grass and rain. My neighbor almost stepped on it but I saw it before he could step backwards. Poor fellow goes in for heart surgery next Thursday but he woulda been in there a lot sooner if he'd stepped on that wire.

I go to the doctor this afternoon for my ear, provided my mother can get around the tree shards to get to my house. I'll post details on that once I get home.

Also, I went to the endocrinologist on Tuesday. My testosterone levels are down, from an 85 to a 13. So that's a definite improvement.

I applied for a job yesterday, so we'll see if that pans out. I've got a couple others I plan on applying for as well.

That's what's going on right now. I really don't want to go to the doctor, and I REALLY don't want to take Sweet'ums with me, but I don't have a lot of choice. NG has to work and can't keep her at home, and my mom isn't keen on me driving in Tampa traffic by myself (I don't drive much anyway). So my afternoon is tied up. But anyway, I'll tell more later... time to go get the hubster up for lunch and get Sweet'ums ready.

Bad Day

My dad lost his job.

Mom's got student loans. They've got her van payment. They were the ones who bought our place so they're paying on that... So we're probably going to need to find something else so they don't have to keep paying (I'm not paying lot rent and loan payments on something that will never REALLY be mine). It's only $200 a month but it's a lot for people who can't afford it.

My parents are in their fifties. It's not easy to find jobs at their age. Granted, plenty of folks are going through it but geez. At least their home is paid off--they won't have to worry about it. We have an old car of theirs so if their van goes back, at least they have something.

But it opens a whole new can of worms. I don't know what they're going to do or what we're going to do.

I dunno...

Trying to be better

Lately I've been really grumpy. Circumstances and events have me emotional in so many different directions it isn't even funny--laughing and crying and angry and apathetic, all in one moment. I haven't been a particularly pleasant person, for my family or anyone else.

So I'm trying again. I get in a funk and have trouble getting out, but slowly I'm dragging myself out of this one. So to help, I'll try to only say positive things.

Sweet'ums is soooo cute! She loves her new baby and tries to take care of it like one would a real baby. She rocks it and talks to it and tries to do Little Piggies on the baby's toes. She's constantly trying to feed it, which I guess says something about my family's relationship with food. The other morning when Nice Guy went to get her up her diaper was soaked, and she was very carefully trying to change her baby's diaper. She's very good at imitation and playing pretend. And I still can't get over this wonderful feeling I get when I watch her pretending to be Mommy.

I'm still losing weight, so I'm very pleased about that. I think partly it's the birth control (doc hoped it would lower my testosterone and, as a consequence, my weight), partly the stomach trouble that my birth control aggravates, and partly the diet that we're trying to incorporate into our lives. We're getting better at it, but it's always hard to eat properly when your resources are limited and cheap food is bad for you. I've really got to start going to the gym now that my wrist is fairly well healed, because that's really going to help the weight loss and getting-in-shape process. But at least it's not too discouraging... I feel like I'm actually getting somewhere with this.

The low points for the week are that NG has an earache, but at least he's a sweetie about it. I just hate that he isn't feeling well, especially with an earache. The other thing is that the house we were looking into isn't at the other end of our road (and hence, in a better area) but is, in fact, just around the corner from where I live now. So the place itself is nicer, but the neighborhood is no better. So we're torn about what to do, because it's a good opportunity for home-ownership, but we don't want to stay around here either. But I'm not going to gripe about it... Just filling everyone in after the last post about daycare and jobs.

So I guess that's all for now. I've got to go start supper and tend to my sweetie. Soon Sweet'ums will be up from her nap and then I'll have my hands full with the two of them. So good night and I hope everyone's having a good week.

Happy Mother's Day

Today wasn't a bad day. We got together with my parents to pick up Sweet'ums and went to lunch with them. It was a good day, overall.

The best part came when we got home, though. My mom and dad got Sweet'ums a Cabbage Patch Doll for her first birthday (eight months ago!!!) and we decided to wait to give it to her. She's finally showing signs that she needs a baby doll (mainly, she feeds her sippy cups to her froggy and treats it like a baby) so we brought it out tonight. And she fell in love.

She's a natural mommy. She's never been around little babies and hasn't seen them being cared for, but she naturally seems to know what to do. She's sooo worried that her baby's bottle doesn't have anything in it, but tries to feed the baby anyway. She wanted to do "Little Piggie" with her baby's toes, and tried putting her shoes on her baby. She tried to change her baby's diaper but I picked the baby up while Sweet'ums was playing with the diaper, and she got distracted. Tonight, when she went to bed, she took her baby with her.

The really funny part was that Nice Guy asked her where babies came from. So she stuck out her belly as far as it would go and started squishing it and saying "baby". I have no idea where she picked that up--there's no one close to us who is pregnant, and she doesn't watch that kind of thing on TV. But it was hysterical.

So for Mother's Day, the best gift I got was feeling like I'm doing a good job. She's trying to nurture her baby and it makes me feel like maybe she's getting the right message from me and Nice Guy. I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Still trying to stay on top

I'm feeling a little bit hopeless today. We managed to get through last week, but now we face this week. We're living on very little, and instead of being able to give us money like FIL said he would last week, he's had to use the money to pay bills now on account of my highly irresponsible SIL and her husband. The part that makes me mad about it isn't that he can't help, but that I find it strange how my SIL can't afford to pay her rent and yet she can afford Clomid to try to get pregnant. Mind you, she called us last week asking us to buy her a pregnancy test, because she was broke. The morning after the night we had to call my FIL to ask him for money. Umm, yeah.

So I'm really down. I know we'll make it but I have no idea how. I keep having flashbacks to my own childhood... Things sucked back then and things suck now, and I'd always hoped Sweet'ums wouldn't have to grow up the way I did.

My only option is to go to work and yet I feel like I'd be abandoning my baby. I'm hard of hearing, and that's going to make work hard for me in the fields I'd have to work in. And with the schedule NG has to keep for his job I have no idea how we'd manage work hours and taking care of Sweet'ums. And there's times where NG and I can barely find time for each other. If I go to work I don't know what we'll do.

I'm heartbroken over all of this but I don't see any other choices anymore. We've struggled since we got married and we can't seem to catch a break. And unfortunately, we're not moochers like my SIL... We've got too much pride to rely on someone else to pay our bills.

All I want to do is cry, but it won't change anything. I'm out of choices and I'm so horribly unhappy.