I am a 36 year old Stay at home Mom. This is my journal of (hopefully)self improvement. There are many things I feel the need to change about myself. I will also have some average, run of the mill rants and raves thrown in for fun.
I had the oddest dream last night. I dreamt I lived in a house different than mine, with a man who was different than my husband. Friends whom I have never seen before. My Mom was at least still the same. The oddest part of this dream is that obviously my Mother and I had a dead body rolled up in brown plastic in the back of our white van (neither of us owns a van of any color). I was feeling very guilty about the dead body which I didn't actually see in the dream I just jnew what it was. I wanted to call the police but my Mom kept telling me no that it didn't matter if it was an accident we would get in trouble. I knew we couldn't dump the body because they would be able to trace it back to us. On a different note the man I was with in the dream was overly affectionate towards me. My husband is not like that. don't get me wrong he hugs me and kisses me and is affectionate but he is not a hand holding arm around you kind of guy. The dream ended with a big flood and us having to swim to the school to be safe and when we got there the van was there. I woke up at that point with an odd feeling I couldn't shake. very very wierd.
Now since neither my Mother nor I are murderers I wonder what the heck this dream could symbolize. I haven't started reading the book The Lovely Bones which is about a dead girl so I don't think that influenced the dream although I was thinking about the book before I went to bed last night. Whatever caused this I hope not to repeat it.
Football Anyone??
I am no longer sure Michael will be playing football this year. I really think it would be so good for him. I told him the other day that I would pay for half his football cleats but I thought h should pay for half too. My reason behind this? I have been burned several times before by putting out money for something he really wanted to do only to have him quit soon after with my money being wasted. I thought maybe if he had a monetary investment in football he would be less apt to give it up so quickly. Since he has never been involved in football before I have no idea of cost. I did a quick search and found them ranging for $20 - $150 I know my son would be in the higher range. He inherited my good taste. It never fails if faced with a choice of identical items with one being $10 and one being $100 without knowing price we will both automatically pick up the $100 item. Anyway I am hoping he will decide it is worth it to play and his contribution will keep the cleats in the more reasonable range. I am actually hoping he will still decide to play. I think he really needs something like this. He just isn't into groups and organized activities but the exercise is something he can really use. I also think he would gain pride and self confidence playing a sport. We will see how it all plays out.
I woke up this morning to Andrew's feet pushing on my back while he whined that he couldn't move. I had to crack up laughing. He was laying sideways in the bed and had at least 2/3 of the bed to himself but was complaining that I was in his way. It isn't uncommon in the middle of the night for me to ask him to move over because I literally cannot move without falling out of the bed so I am guessing that is where the "I can't move" came from. Then I got to lay there for a little bit and nuggle with him. Nuggling is my favorite part of the day. He is always so sweet in the morning, so warm and cuddly as he wakes up. I soak up these times because I know there will be a day when he doesn't want to snuggle together as we wake up.
Contact Lenses
Michael got his contacts today. We went in for his appointment and they sent him home with a 14 day disposable pair to see how he likes them. He has a followup appointment next Friday to see how he likes them. If they are working out for him then we will order his years supply. They also fixed the nosepiece on his glasses that has been broken for a month. We were there for an hour and a half. Andrew was bored out of his mind. When we first got there, there was a little girl there with her father. She was absolutely adorable and her and Andrew struck up a quick friendship. It is so cute to see little kids getting to know each other. First they compared toys. Her cute little baby doll and his Harold the Helicopter. Then they discussed how old they are, she was 4. Then they finally exchanged names. Hers was Molly. They were very cute together. Andrew invited her to come to our house and watch Thomas and the magic railroad. High praise since it is his favorite video. Though Stuart Little is coming in a close second these days. Anyway Andrew was heartbroken when it was time for her to leave. He walked her to the foor chattering the whole way. He loves other children. Actually he loves people in general. He is the most social little guy. I think preschool is going to be wonderful for him. He spent the remainder of our time there chatting with an elderly man who was there waiting for someone.
Michael wore his contacts all day and did surprisingly well with them. As expected his eyes were a little itchy and irritated but by this evening they had cleared up pretty much. I think he will do really well with them.
The Shopping Trip
Andrew finally got Splatter and Dodge today. When we first started talking about potty training I told him when he used the potty all the time he would get Deisel 10, Splatter and Dodge (characters from the Thomas the tank engine movie) We got Diesel 10 a couple weeks ago but the store didn't have Splatter and Dodge. We found them today and completed the group. My Mom went with us and spoiled the boys with a few other little trinkets. After the toy store we went next door to Borders. I bought The Lovely Bones for me and The Kissing Hand and a few other starting school books for Andrew. I cannot tell you how cute I think The Kissing Hand is. It really made me smile because this is exactly what I used to do with Michael when he was little and I had to leave him at the sitters in the morning. It even came with some little stickers.
Then we were off to JC Penney's. They were having their annual the more you spend the more you save sale. I decided to finish up all the school/winter clothes shopping for the boys. I think I didn't do too badly. I spent $275 but I saved $150. I got just about everything they will need for winter. I got Michael 3 more pair of pants (at regular price they were over $100) and 3 more shirts. Andrew got 4 pair of jeans - a little pair of Jnco's that I couldn't pass up. Those are what Michael wears and they are adorable on Drew. I got him a Clifford sweat outfit and 2 pairs of nylon pants. I also got him 10 longsleeve shirts. He picked out a little camoflage shirt; it is a little big but adorable on him. Last but not least a couple pair of new jammies.
So I was feeling like I did good saving as much as I did since I would have bought these anyway. I came home and Bryan asked what I spent. I told him and he was less than happy about it. He told me he didn't think they needed $275 worth of clothes right now. I said the alternative was them going to school naked. He didn't think they were in any danger of that. I explained that Andrew didn't have any long pants that fit him anymore. I guess Bryan doesn't realize they are growing boys and that unlike us they usually can't wear the same stuff from year to year. His attitude put a damper on my good mood but I am getting over it.
The check is in and she did not deduct money for the cell phone this week! The issue is not resolved but at least that is something. Bryan asked Tom today and he said he brought up the subject with her but there was a bigger subject and she got mad and took her book into the other room so they didn't really discuss it. He said that he would though, as long as she isn't taking money out of Bryan's check I don't care how long they take to work it out.
I think Andrew is potty trained. I am kind of afraid to put that down but he is using the potty all the time now. It happened so gradually and without pressure from me, He just decided that he wanted to do it and did it. The only credit I can take is not pressuring him to do it when the general public says it should have been done. He still has an ocassional overnight wetting but I just decided to keep him in pullups overnight for a while. As long as he doesn't mind it then I don't mind spending the litle bit on pull ups. I will reevaluate when we go through this bag of them.
Michael is going to the opthamoligist tomorrow. He is finally getting contact lenses. I hope they work out for him. He will not wear his glasses consistantly for some reason. It makes no sense to me. He is a cutie in them. Heck he is a cutie without them. All of the highlighting is out of his hair now. He hasn't decided if he wants to do it again or leave it dark. I think he doesn't want to do it while he is working for fear the guys will give him trouble about it. Next week is his last to work. Bryan told me tonight how impressed everyone is with him. Jim the manager he works for says Michael works as hard as if not harder than the other men who work there. He told Bryan that Michael is always working and he has earned the right to loaf for a minute or two because he works so well. he is also very respectful of his superiors. Everything is yes sir and no sir. I am so impressed with him and so damn proud of him.
OK, so maybe you ain't a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you're probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutia. God, I hate you.
Slight update. My husband talked with Tom this morning and Tom told him he totally understood. He said he would talk to Kathy but he thought it was a conversation they shouldn't have at work. In other words he thought there would be some yelling and screaming involved. So we won't know the outcome till sometime later this week. Whenever it is I am hoping there isn't another $70 out of Bryan's check this week. The drama continues.
This has been a sad week locally. I am still so saddened by Casey Williamson. This has been one sad summer. Why are people killing our children? I hold my children so dear to myself. People consider me too protective but how can you not be? How can you go on after something like this happens to your child? Michael may be 14 but he is still my child. I am going to be protecting him until he is 100. I just hope I can keep them both safe. We have to do something to protect our children. We must must must do something.
I am up early today. Bryan is going to talk to the bosses about the phone and it has me a nervous wreck. He tried talking to the wife on Friday and she started yelling at him about it. He said he just got up and told her he would discuss it with me and walked out. He said he was getting angry and flustered and he wanted to have all his points down before he tackled that conversation. She says she doesn't think they should have to eat that money. I say they have already gotten the tax credit for that money. She never in 2 years time indicated in any way that we should pay for that bill. I remember Bryan telling me about how she kept showing him different phones and plans that we might be interested in and him finally asking Tom if she wanted us to start paying for my phone and Tom saying don't worry about it. Of course now he can't seem to remember that. I found out this isn't the first case of faulty memory though. This is something that happened with another manager. They got a contract to sell furniture because a few of them wanted leather couches and it was so much cheaper to buy them direct. So they ordered them. After they came in they had no way to deliver them so one of the guys offered to rent a truck and they could deliver them together on a Saturday. So that is what they did. As they are delivering to that employees house Tom says to him and his wife. " a heck of a perk from your employer isn't it?" He totally gave them the impression that he was giving it to them with that comment and the rest of the conversation. A couple weeks later the wife gives the guy a bill for $1200. The kicker is that when they originally set up the deal Tom had quoted the guy $800. He went in and she wouldn't budge. He finally ended up paying $1050 for the couch that the boss gave him as a perk. I am seeing some similarities here. Another friend of ours worked there for a while and bought a desk from them . Tom quoted him $100 (it was used) Between getting the desk and getting the bill the guy found a new job and quit working there. A week after he quit he received a bill for $650 for the desk. His wife called and said there must be some mistake. Long story short they took the desk back because the wife said that she didn't believe that is what Tom quoted him. She says the same about the phone. She told Bryan that she didn't believe him that Tom said not to worry about the phone. I think that bothers me more than anything else. Bryan has worked for them for years (7or 8) He is not a liar. After that many years working with him she knows that. Yet over what amounts to little money to them she has called Bryan a liar. That has me out of my mind steaming mad all by itself.
Bryan put down a lot of facts just about how they have treated him in general. I told him I thought he should just stick to the facts of the phone but he wants to bring it all out in the open, that scares me. Something that really makes me laugh is that when Bryan was a contractor for them before he became an official company employee he took a small % of his work in trade money. He put that aside and hasn't even thought of it since he became salaried. He pulled it out last night. They owe him $29,750 in trade. There is probably some that could come off that for things they have given Bryan in the past couple years, but even at that it has to still be $20,000 that they owe Bryan. So she is saying she shouldn't eat the phone bill yet they owe Bryan $20,000. He printed that out and took it in to work with him today. My biggest fear is that even when this is over this whole situation is going to create hard feelings. Of course there have been several issues in the past year that have created hard feelings on Bryans part and he has chose to sweep them under the rug and move on. There was the Robert incident where the guy attacked Bryan and then told the boss it was because Bryan was racist - mind you none of the other African american employees (about 12 others that Bryan supervises) agreed with him. They chose to not fire Robert because they didn't want to have to deal with the racism claim. They totally undermined Bryan's authority with his men by allowing one to attack him and suffer no reprecussions. A month later when they chose to fire the guy for refusing to do a job they wanted he claimed Tom was a racist. They never once said Gee Bryan I guess we were wrong. Then there was the Shane incident. The guy got pissed at Bryan threw a chair at him and told him he better watch out because he knew where he lived. The guy quit in the process also making several racist slurs about the guys he worked with. He went to the bosses hours later and they actually agreed to let him continue working there if Bryan would agree to it. Bryan told them that the guy threatened his family and he would walk out if the guy was allowed to continue working there. He also told them that about a dozen of hismen would do the same. They did actually stick with Bryan on this one - you see the guy quit so they didn't have to worry about the unemployment aspect of getting rid of him. There was the Hawaii fiasco. They wanted him to go to Hawaii and work on the house they bought for their daughter. Bryan agree to go even though he knew I was not happy about it. They decided on Feb and he told them he couldn't go the week of the 12th and 14th (Michaels birthday and Valentines Day) He said any other week that month would be ok. She came back the next day saying she had booked his flight and he would be going that week. He told her that was the one week he had said he couldn't go. she said yeah she knew that but it was the week she could get the best deal. Even though it caused major problems between him and I he went. She knew the problems it was causing and she didn't give a fuck becaue she could save money. You know if she had been sending him on vacation that would have been one thing but he was going to work on her daughters house. They got to stay in a hotel 2 nights because she got that with the plan but the rest of the time there he had to stay at her daughters apartment with her. I cannot tell you what problems this caused for me. I mean seriously sending a married man to stay with a college co-ed so she can save a buck. So it seems she trusts him to be of good enough character to stay alone in tropical paradise with her daughter but he is a liar when he says Tom told him not to worry about my phone.
Bryan left work early on Friday and when Tom asked if he was sick Bryan told him no he was feeling fine and he would discuss it with him on Monday. I am sure that told him that Bryan was leaving because he was upset about the phone issue. I am hoping Tom discussed it with Kathy over the weekend and made her see some light and Bryan won't even have to get into anything else. I am going to be a nervous wreck until he is home today and telling me how it all went.
There are just so many things. Had she given us a bill 2 years ago we could have decided at any time since then to downgrade to a cheaper plan when we saw that I wasn't using many of my minutes. the truth is that I am sure I would have switched to a prepaid plan well over a year ago since it would be a fraction of the cost of this. I do not understand this. Kathy has never had a problem giving us any other bills that have come in for something we got. Like they have an account with a battery company. We order batteries there every once in a while and then when the bill comes in she gives it to Bryan and I mail the payment to them directly. There have been a couple other things like our couch that we paid for. She had no problem sending that bill to me. So in the past if she has expected me to pay a bill she has given it to me. Why didn't she ever once give me this bill to pay? I think the company must really be hurting for money right now.
