Songs of a Phoenix

Well, I for one have to say I'm not surprised. Given that I am married to someone who was diagnosed eight years ago as bipolar, and said bipolar DH often tells me, "I think you're more bipolar than I am," I would have to concur with the quiz's assessment.

What mental disorder do you have? Your Result: Manic Depressive   You have extreme cycles of highs and lows. Sometimes you feel like you don't know who you are. One week you could be very hyper and happy and the next week you are slow and depressed.
GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)
OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
Paranoia
ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
What mental disorder do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I can post this here because no one in my family or other RL knows I have LJ. So when I want to bitch, you all are the lucky ones who get to read it.

You may have heard me gripe before about my husband's ex-wife. I am very lucky in that we have a nice relationship, and that she and DH have a good relationship, and she's good to the boys (though I don't always agree with some of her parenting decisions, I do respect them, and they love her).

SHE'S A FUCKINIG IDIOT!!!

She can never be without a man. In the five plus years I've known her, she's been without a man maybe all of a month. Total. In July of last year, she (rightly) dumped her boyfriend because while she was driving home from a bar (yes, they were both drunk), they got in a fight, and he grabbed the wheel and slammed the truck into a guard rail. Fortunately, no one was hurt. In September or so, after getting rid of a decent boyfriend, she got back with the ex. I thought she was stupid then. And in November, he put her in the hospital. Broke her nose, broke a rib, and various other bruises, because they had both been drinking and they got in a fight. (See a pattern here?) She (rightly) dumps him, presses charges, and DH tells her that man is never allowed to be in the boys' presence again, to which she vehemently agrees. In February, she gets her (second in two years) DUI. She starts going to AA meetings while waiting for her hearing (a good idea, as she clearly is an alcoholic, which I failed to notice before). We start thinking maybe she's going to turn her life around. I ask DH if she has to do jail time if we would get the boys during that time (we have them every Wed-Sun now, for those who may have forgotten) and he said if her family can arrange it, he'd be ok with them staying with their grandparents or aunt or something, so that her family and their little brother still get to see them on the regular schedule. Fine. I asked him if he thought she would ever get back with her ex, as she was currently single, for about two weeks. He said he didn't think she ever would, first because of the abuse, second because he couldn't imagine her telling her dad that she was bringing him back, as her dad might kill the guy. I told him if she ever did, given the history, I would support and even encourage going after full custody of the boys. (Not that I wouldn't support it if he felt he had another reason to do so.) In the meantime, the last week in May, the ex gets sentenced for the assault, and ends up with a fine of about $2,000 (this charge was aggravated assault since they didn't live together - I've since found out he has two OTHER domestic violence charges). Also, her sentencing hearing for the DUI charge is set for hte first week in September.

With me so far?

TODAY, DH tells me after we dropped the boys off after church to their mom's, that yesterday while he was in town, he was pretty certain he saw her on the back of a motorcylce - her ex's motorcycle. He asked her about it, and she said she was, as the ex has apparently gone through rehab and is trying to get his life together. He reminds her that he doesn't want the ex in the same room as the boys, and she consents to this. Now DH is pretty angry, I'm livid, and in my mind, I'm thinking he should be calling a fucking attorney right now. Great for him if he gets his life together, but clearly he is an alcoholic and violent, and clearly she can't fend him off. What if he decides to beat her door down right now, and my boys are there? I don't like this one bit. I don't want to push it on DH though, because I know he's already feeling really concerned and probably somewhat powerless.

The woman is an idiot.

I think I have determined why I don't like first person writing as much as third. I have found in the trash I read, if the story is written in first person, the more likely the main character is to be a ditz or whiny or an airhead or all of the above. And apparently, it must be difficult to have such a shallow character in third person, because then someone might think she has some depth.

Example A: Twilight. Bella is obsessive-in-love. And clearly, there were many parts throughout the series, as you watch Bella's transformation, that first person was important and third person wouldn't have shown all her depression and then growth and conflict. The flip side is, in third person, I wouldn't have had to read all the whining.

Example B: Confessions of a Shopaholic. Holy Shallow Heroine! And it was a fun, light read, but good lord, Rebecca needs to be kicked. And I know without first person, I wouldn't have read how she'd be pursuing a train of thought and suddenly be distracted by haute couture whatever, I still hope there aren't many women who think this way. If so, they're certainly not among my friends.

Ok, back to my (third-person) writing...

So DH, boys and I just returned from the movie Up. I thought that I would like it, as I do like Disney/Pixar films, particuarly when there's some smart humour in them, which Up did include.

I did not expect to nearly cry in the first ten minutes of the movie. *SLIGHT SPOILER* Carl and Ellie marry and as they're laying on the ground watching the clouds, she apparently tells him they are going to have a baby. This alone makes me want to tear up, yes even fictional ANIMATED characters, but then the montage continues. The next scene is them painting a nursery and getting ready for the baby, and then suddenly they are in the hospital and Ellie is crying. I almost started bawling. An animated character miscarried her baby, and I'm in freaking tears. And then the little girl a few rows down asks, loud enough that I can hear, "Mommy, did she have the baby yet?" And I quite nearly lost it. /spoiler. Otherwise, the movie was thoroughly entertaining, and I do recommend it.

To balance out the crying over Up, after the film ended, my one stepson wanted to go to the bookstore and get a new book. I went with him, and DH and other stepson went to the sporting goods store. While in the bookstore, I bought a new journal, a new notebook, as Terri's MWPP Hogwarts class has been generating many random plot bunnies (and might I mention that I have never written MWPP era/characters?), and then, in the ultimate show of shallowness, I bought Confessions of a Shopaholic. I have not seen the movie, I have only heard about the book. And yes, we're in a recession, and yes Becky is a silly fashionista (though I secretly dream of being one myself!), but you know what? To paraphrase Minerva McGonnagall, sometimes it's ok to participate in some well-mannered frivolty. And I fully intend to indulge, and read as much of this book as I can tonight.

So I think our router at home is about to bite it, and my home access has been freaking limited. (And yeah, that will be our third router in three years.) So, you will get 31 confessions from me, but I don't promise they will be consecutive. And since this will probably be a long one, I didn't want to clutter it with multiple confessions. So...

CONFESSION FOUR

I have a love/hate relationship with my husband's ex-wife. And she doesn't even know it. It's all in my head. I treat her respectfully, I am nice to her and her family, I would NEVER say one bad word about her in front of my stepsons, but in all honesty, the woman makes me insane and I don't know what the hell DH was doing with her.

She has never held a job longer than a year. In fact, she tends to quit jobs before she finds another. She has a teaching degree, but no teaching license. She didn't have the grades or something. And then, since Ohio switched to licenses instead of certificates, she has been out of it long enough that she needed extra classes to even try to get it. So fine, after ten years of barely more than minimum wage jobs, on and off public assistance, and short periods of unemployment, she decides to go back to school to get that license. She was actually able to get a job at a Christian school teaching 1st/2nd grade (parochial schools don't have the same requirements). After a year of that, she quit. Decided she didn't like the organization and how it was run. Fine. But did she have another job lined up? Of course not. She then got a job in a daycare. Great job. For her, heaven sent. And she went and screwed it up.

How? She got her second DUI in two years. I want to f'ing shake her. Ohio won't let you work in a daycare if you've had a recent DUI. So she either had to quit or be fired. She quit. She just got another job, which I'm sure she will mess up somehow, even though it has the potential to double any salary she's made her entire adult life.

She doesn't come to all of the boys' stuff. For example, Saturday, Trey had a soccer game about twenty minutes away. That away field is possibly closer to her house than the home field. Then both boys graduated from Cub Scouts that night. She didn't come to the soccer game because it was a nice day and she went riding on her motorcycle. Whatever, no one expects her to come to away games. She didn't come to the graduation. She forgot. Yep, you read that right. She forgot. When Vance had his band concert, the concert started at 6. DH's whole family was there (all ten of us!) and her mom and dad were there. She wasn't. She thought it started at 6:30 and missed the whole thing.

She runs through men faster than most women run through clothes. In the six years I've been around, she's been through nine relationships (some the same guy just different times) including a second marriage and divorce. And it's not that most of the men aren't nice guys, but she practically has them living with her within the first month.

It really worries me what the boys see. Do they expect much of her, or do they just accept that is who she is? Do they make the connection between me and DH's good, respectful marriage and decent house and income and her job and male hopping and living in a trailer with the phone reguarly shut off? I know kids are smart, but these are the best two kids in the world (plus she has another from one of those above relationships) and I don't want them to be hurt. By their own mother nonetheless.

And yet, she's nice. She would never say an unkind word about me either. She and DH have a respectful relationship. I want her to do well for herself. But all of the above just eats at me. I'm protective of those boys. I don't want anything to hurt them. And I think she does. Oh the drama in my life.

First, thank you guys so much for your support. It really means a lot to me and I appreciate you all very much. These two (since I didn't make it on yesterday) will be a little lighter.

CONFESSION TWO

I am absolutely addicted to America's Next Top Model. Like REALLY addicted. My world stops Wednesdays at 8 (and I am so thrilled with the elimation last night - I could not STAND her!) and I must watch it. Drives the hubby crazy. He jokes that if he watched it, I'd be mad because he's watching it for the eye candy. (And I might!) But I watch it for the drama, and the world I will never be a part of (never WANT to be a part of).

Most weekends you can find a Top Model marathon on one of the "women's" TV channels. And even though I've seen every season (except 1 and 11, because they never seem to be on) like eighty times each, I could (and usually do) sit and watch them all day long.

CONFESSION THREE

I am obsessive compulsive about checking to make sure both of my headlights on my car work. This happened because at the beginning of September, the driver's side light blew out. The car is over five years old and the lights had never been replaced, so my father-in-law replaced them both for me. Two days before Christmas, the driver's side light blew again. I thought maybe I just had a bad bulb and would get around to replacing it again. About a week later, I stopped at a gas station one night and when I was pulling out, a car started flashing its lights at me. Turns out, the other light blew too! So I drove the rest of the way to my in-laws house (after stopping to buy new bulbs) with my brights on so my FIL could change the bulbs again. I hoped it was just a bad package of bulbs. This started my obsession. Every time I have my lights on, if I'm behind another car, I check to make sure there are two lights in the reflection of the car's bumper. At least three times a day (I drive a lot before the sun comes up on the way to work). Which is why I can tell you exactly when the driver's side light went out AGAIN (for those keeping count, that's the third time in seven months, when prior to this it had gone over five years) about two weeks ago. Took the car to the shop, and naturally they can't find anything wrong. But the did give me a warranty on new headlights, so that when these ones inevitably blow as well, they will replace them for free. I feel like I'm the one that will come out ahead in this deal. So far so good on these new ones. Trust me. I just checked in the bumper of an SUV about twenty minutes ago.

Umm...yeah.

How many months has it been since I posted? So I'm overwhelmed with all these confessions, and I feel like I should be as deep as you all and start them myself.

CONFESSION ONE

Wow, which one to start with. Ok, how about this one. I've been married for two years. Today, in fact, is two years on the nose. And while most of the time I'm happy with this situation, there have been times, some rather recently, where I've really wondered if I made the right choice.

I sometimes feel more like a roommate than a wife. I think sometimes that the only reason my husband stays with me is because he can't afford our house on his own. Or that he needs me to cook and grocery shop, and occasionally take one of the boys to a practice, but that's it. And honestly, there's been times where I've seriously considered walking out. I have a plan. I have some cash. And if I ever really did reach my breaking point, I could leave and it wouldn't ruin me. It would ruin him, though I don't think he realizes that.

I never saw myself as the kind of person who would get divorced. I mean, I understand why it happens and why people do it (hello, I married someone who's divorced) but I never thought it would happen to me. And yet, some days, that seems a very obvious choice.

I had a really hard time picking out a card for this anniversary. They were all lovey "even though we have differences, I love you more, blah, blah". But the problem was, at the time I was buying the card, I didn't feel that way. I felt giving him any card about my growing love would be a lie. I finally found one not so fluffy, and went with it. I honestly didn't expect him to remember. And I'm not certain he did on his own, or because one of my friends left a comment on Facebook last night about it.

I'm sure I'll spill some of the reasons why I've gotten to this point in the coming month, but I'll get that one out there first. It's also the one that makes me feel the worst about myself. The rest should be easy.

As the head coach of my beloved Buckeyes, let me simply say, you blow my mind.

Not in the good way.

Conservatism is a great idea for many morals, religions, and politics. Conservatism does not win football games. Cover 2 defense and the I-formation are predictable and picked apart. A TD pass from one quarterback to another, now that's creative. I much prefer that side of you.

That is all.

My ten year old stepson just got a Christmas gift from his girlfriend (who, for a fifth/sixth grade relationship are remarkably well-suited - they both play on the travelling soccer team - though different genders/age levels - and they are even both twins...). And it was a really NICE gift. He gave her a necklace from Lia Sophia (ie, not cheap imitation WalMart) and she gave him a chain with a dog tag type thing with the Arsenal mascot/symbol/whatever you want to call it on it.

But yeah, he's ten........

First, I have to say that I totally showed my dearest cousin my LJ, because she was asking me about blogging. *See previous entry about being old.* So, I hope to God she doesn't remember my username and doesn't check this out, seeing as how most of this post will concern her.

Tiff and her husband Rob have also been trying to get pregnant. Not for nearly as long as Vance and I, but for about five months. Well, needless to say, she found out on Friday that they are indeed going to have a baby. After about three hours of wallowing in my own self-pity, I am super excited about this. I cannot wait to have a baby in the family - the first great-grandchild for my grandma, and hopefully the first of many for us.

Anyway, last Wednesday, when we went out to dinner, we were talking about this book that both of us had as a kid. It's a Christmas book, and it was about these little gingerbread bears that after the hard-working family that is making them goes to bed, the bears come alive and finish all the Christmas projects that the family started but is just too tired to finish - knitting sweaters, building toys, etc. Finally on Christmas Eve, Santa comes, and the bears get scared and hide, but Santa praises them for their work and gives them all these little hearts, so that the bears stay alive forever. Well, I know that somewhere in my parents' house is my copy. She thinks her parents sold hers in a yard sale years ago. And I, of course, thought, What a great Christmas gift that would make.

So, after longer than I'd care to admit on Amazon.com and ebay, after searching Gingerbread, Christmas, and endless variations, it came to me out of nowhere - they're the Gingerbears! And I searched that and lo and behold there was only one match. So I ordered the book and it wil be here next week!

Super excited am I. I did a good unselfish thing (and the book is really for the baby, of course...)

Happy Thanksgiving, my American flist. I know I have so much for which to be thankful.

You are The Hierophant

Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching.

All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel.

The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

In regards to the election...

As goes (my state of) Ohio....

The state followed my lead, anyway.

I'm officially a grammar nazi. I've tried. I really have. But I just cannot text like a normal person. All my texts include to, two, or too instead of 2. You instead of u. Tonight instead of 2nite. I'm grammar OCD something fierce. I'm old. Can't help it.

Elections tomorrow. Finally. So tired of all the phone calls and mailings. Took a page from my mother-in-law's book starting a few days ago. When the political party representatives have been calling, I've told them I've already early voted and they don't need to call back. Which is a total lie, of course. What if I voted for my chosen candidate and the next day he did something or something came out to make me totally regret it? Plus, up until about two weeks ago, I wasn't entirely sure which way my vote would go anyway. Hell, I could still change my mind while at the polling booth tomorrow, but as of right now, I'm 90% sure which way I'm leaning.

In other news, my little nephew turned two on Oct. 21, and he is so much fun. I love him to bits. Effective last Thursday, he can finally say my name. Kind of. K's are hard. But my sister-in-law and I tried to get him to say it for like five minutes, but he just would not repeat it. About half an hour after that, we were in my kitchen, and he said, "Mama, water." My SIL didn't hear him as she was talking to someone else, so he came over and looked up at me with his cute little face, and said, "Nim, water." Bless.

Thanks everyone for all the thoughts, prayer and concern. It's amazing how positive energy can flow so far into one so small.

Reid is doing so well given his situation. In summary, the doctors have gone from saying he only had a 30% chance of survival to being optimistic that he might come home a completely normal little boy! His heart and brain scans were negetive for any issues, and he is a little fighter. He was fighting the ventilator, which was good because he wanted to breathe on his own, but bad because the doctors wanted him to just rest and get stronger.

Last night, they took the ventilator out. So he is breathing completely on his own, but he still is getting oxygen. The fluid has almost completely drained. He only has one IV giving him nutrients now instead of three, and last night he even ate a little. He took 5 ml of milk from a bottle, and the doctors said his sucking was good.

They are hoping within the next few days to be able to remove the IV and the other needles draining the fluid. When that happens, his parents will finally be able to hold him as much as they want. Needless to say, they are very excited about that.

The only obstacle still to overcome is waiting on the results of the chromosome tests. If they come back abnormal, the Hydrops (the condition of the fluid collecting in the baby) is probably a genetic issue that he will deal with his whole life. But even here, the doctors are cautiously optimistic that those tests will come back normal as well.

Again, thank you all for keeping Reid and his family in your thoughts. It is appreciated more than I could tell you.


Reid on day seven.

My mom called me a little after eight tonight to tell me that within the hour they were going in to take my cousin's baby by C-section. My uncle had called to tell them and he said it was very likely the baby would not survive the delivery. (And I can't even imagine how hard this is for him, because he's still here in Ohio while all this is happening out in California.)

Naturally, when my mom called again at ten, I didn't even want to answer the phone. But I did, and she told me that the baby (whose name was going to be Reid, she didn't say if they had named him or not) was born at 5:10 local time (Pacific Daylight) and that he weighed exactly seven pounds. He was immediately hooked up to a ventilator in NICU and has tons of needles in his little body to drain the fluid in him. While the doctor did say that the baby looked a lot better than he expected, by the time the fluid is drained away, he'll be lucky to be five pounds. The doctor said he is by no means out of the woods, and that the next 48 hours are absolutely crucial. My cousin is doing fine physically; emotionally, she's a disater (and understandably so).

So, if you all could keep the little guy in your thoughts, I'm sure he would really appreciate it. It's not at all fair that those who are the most innocent have to suffer at all.

So I've returned from my very nice trip to California to visit my pseudo-cousin (as in I call her mom and dad "aunt and uncle" and she calls my parents the same, but we're not related). She is 34 weeks pregnant, and so we didn't do much at all. Basically we lounged around the house (us and her two and a half year old daughter) and at their small pool, though we did make a day trip down into San Franscico (see picspam below). Overall, it was a very nice trip, and I realized how great a relationship we have and how much I miss her. Much like my mom and her mom, we can not see each other for a long time (in this case, almost a year) and spend a week talking nonstop like we've not been apart a day.



Imagine my surprise then, to receive an email from her today with the news that she went into pre-term labor the day after I left. They ended up stopping the labor and putting her on bedrest to get the baby to 36 weeks, but that's not even the worst of it. My cousin has Rh negative blood, and the baby has Rh positive blood. She is in pre-term labor because the baby is in distress. Even though she has taken the necessary precautions (the immune globulin shot) to prevent it, her body is attacking the baby's blood cells. The doctors have said that the outcome could run from one extreme to another - the baby might be born, go into NICU on a ventilator and come home a few weeks later or the baby just as likely could die shortly before or after delivery. My mom talked to my uncle earlier and he's not optimistic at all.

I cannot even imagine. As a parent, your only wish is that your children are healthy. (Hell, I feel that for the twins, and I didn't biologically bear them.) You would gladly take any suffering on yourself, and she just can't. Her first pregnancy miscarried. Her daughter is so excited about having a baby brother. How much grief can one family take?

Makes lots of other things seem so small.

Dearest f-list,

Does anyone have the time/inclination to commit to being a long-term beta on my new project? It's my first attempt into the Post-Hogwarts/next gen world, because I've got a bunny that just wouldn't leave me alone. It's a long-term project in that I'm planning on twenty to twenty-five chapters, but I wouldn't anticipate the chapters coming much quicker than once every few weeks, and more likely, once every few months. James Potter is the main character and it will involve him and the Triwizard Tournament, held at Durmstrang.

Please let me know if you might be interested.

I've been the biggest bitch today. I'm so hormonal and every little thing is irritating me. I had to get up early for class today and that made me mad, the kids are driving me nuts, DH got snippy with me (and rest assured I got snippy right back) and the list goes on.

To top it off, we went to see Wall-e tonight. While I was in line waiting to get popcorn with the boys, I look back and see my husband talking to one of his co-workers (who also used to be my coworker as we met on the job). She's everything I'm not - she's toned, beautiful, has got quite a bit of money - and I know for a fact that before DH and I started dating, if she hadn't been in a relationship, he'd have asked her out. Now, given all that, she is nice, and I enjoyed her company when we worked together. But still. Not today, you know? Do I know DH loves me and wouldn't do anything to mess that up? Of course. But does that stop me from getting jealous? Sure doesn't. And especially not on days like these.

Yeah, so for the first time ever, I'm caught up in watching A Cinderella Story. *Finally sees the appeal of Chad Michael Murray...wow....* Yeah and I'm such a dork. I'm 28 years old and am swooning over a tween-targeted movie. Are high school girls really so bitchy? I'm not sorry for not being in high school at the turn of the century!

So my mom called a few hours ago to let me know that my father's aunt isn't doing very well. They've actually called in hospice and as of yesterday, gave her 24-48 hours. This makes me a bit sad, but, honestly, I only have seen this particular aunt a few times a year for the whole of my life, and secondly, the woman turned ninety-eight a few months ago. I'm amazed she's made it as long as she has. The last time I saw her, January 2007, she wasn't doing very well. She only moved from her bed to the sofa to the restroom. I truly didn't think she'd live for more than a few months then. She has been suffering from Alzheimer's for about the last fifteen years, though obviously, as that is a progressive disease, only in the past five or so years has it been bad. She'd still have surprising moments of lucidity, where she would tease her sister/caretaker. But then in the next moment, she would look at a picture I was holding of my father's parents (her brother and sister-in-law) on their wedding day and think it was a picture of me. And I know it was really hard on my other aunt, who is well into her seventies, who cared for her.

Anyway, the point of this writing is that it made think. I'm very much into genealogoy and my heritage, and find those aspects of history very fasicnating. My father's family, Italians all, have been in this country for less than a century. My aunt, who was born in 1910, was the first daughter to be born in the States. (My uncle was about 18 months older than she was, but he passed about fifteen years ago.) It makes me realize how short of a time half of my family has been in this country at all (my mom's side has been here since the late 1600's, in some lines, but even the most recent additions were in the early 1800's). It makes me think again about what my great-grandparents left behind, and why they left it behind. Why did my great-grandfather come here at the invitation of a cousin, and why did my great-grandmother subsequently sail the Atlantic almost two years later, with two small children, to be with him? What did they think was to gain in a new country where they didn't speak the language? Did they think it would give them a better chance at life? Did they think their children (all thirteen of them...) would have it better here? And more so, would they be proud of me if they knew what today I have become? Do I represent their dreams realized?

I have been trying for several years to get my dad's family to tell me what it was like growing up for them, and what my grandparents and great-grandparents were like (they all died either before I was born or when I was very young). Aunt Phyl (short for Filomena, Americanized, Phyllis) never would say much, but Aunt Matilda...she'd give me bits and pieces of information and even some old pictures and things. This has renewed my desire to get her to talk more. As I said, she's in her late seventies (the baby of the family), and while she's still sharp as a whip, I know that time is limited too.

It saddens me that so many people don't know their roots, or worse, don't care to know them. I wish more people would drink it in. It's such an amazing thing to realize that such a huge conglomerate of people, most long since forgotten, have had a hand in making me the woman I am today. And it should really make me think about what I want to pass on to my step-children and one day my children. It bothers me to think that I have so few stories and know so few details about people who lived only a few generations before me. It pains me worse to know that 100 years from now, if I don't make a concentrated effort, my great-grandchildren will only know me as some name in the family tree. I'm not someone who wants to be forgotten. So ultimately, I guess I have this to say. Time is short. Use it wisely.