Excuses

I mentioned a while back that I had taken a baby-sitting job.

That was a bust.

She would schedule me and then cancel. One day I even got to her house and she wasn't there. She had me meet her at the drugstore because her child had barfed all over herself and she needed to go in and get some Pedialyte and couldn't pick her up because of the barf. I sat in the car with the kid while she went in the store.

I didn't mind. She was a sweet kid. i enjoyed playing with her.

But I'm almost 50. I don't need to play with a 2 year old, especially when the mom never had my money.

Then she stopped calling me.

She owes me $55.

She's come up with every excuse as to why she can't pay me:

• behind on house note
• behind on car note
• need to buy Christmas for her kids (I saw her asking to buy used toys for her little girl on Face Book)
• husband got 3 speeding tickets
• too busy getting ready for Christmas
• too busy recovering from Christmas
• had a migraine
• had to tithe at church
• had to help a family that got robbed ( while she is robbing me)
• her FIL is on the edge of dying
• her little girl had rotted teeth and suddenly needs them taken out

I do know from FB that she took her daughter to the hospital with a UTI, the same hospital where my DIL works. Apparently, the condition of the little girl's teeth concerned people at the hospital. My DIL asked me several questions about the mom and girl out of the blue. Then she told me that the mother was reported to DHS for neglect over the rotten teeth. I know this violates every patient privacy law, but she wanted me to be prepared in case DHS came out to the house while I was there. I hadn't told her I wasn't still baby-sitting, but I told her then. So I guess the mom is being forced to do something about the teeth finally.

But I'm still out $55. Small price to pay for me to learn not to trust strangers, even strangers that let you in their house and trust you with their child.

I pity her children.

Delete

There is blog I used to read. She was a happy woman, my age, with a fulfilling career, good social circle, Everything seemed rosy.

I even met her. She was as nice in person as she was on her blog. We met for coffee when she was traveling with her boyfriend.

Then she got married and started a new blog. Then she abandoned it.

Today I was cleaning up old bookmarks and clicked on her blog, just once more, before deleting it.

And there was her blog. She had lost 100 lbs., headed off diabetes and gone back to college to further her education.

But she looks 70 years old. Wrinkles out the wazoo. Brittle looking, Not looking like she has much longer on the planet.

I know you can't judge by looks, but she looks like she's been under a ton of stress. Her writing is different. She is very hard and judgemental. She not the same person she was before.

So I hit delete.

I am sad.

Bad Thoughts

I am wrestling with inner turmoil.

I am going to quit my diet group.

I haven't lost any weight in a while.

I am the biggest one in there.

I am less than enthused about the behavior of the leader.

It has become something I have started to dread attending.

When something becomes an unnecessary burden, it's time to let it go.

Cue that damned song from Frozen.

Swatches of Color and Cooties

My granddaughter has gotten into watching Youtube beauty videos. I have tried to watch them but they all seem to do something that makes me feel sick.

They "swatch" colors, which means they rub lipsticks on their arm or stick their fingers in the product, then smear it on some other body part, all in the name of showing the trueness of the color. They are smearing germs all over creation. I could understand using a Q-tip or cottonball, but not their nasty fingers. Plus they may wash their hands but do they wash their forearms before rubbing a $40 lipstick on it? NO!

It grosses me out. I wouldn't want to "swatch" something and then put it on my face, especially eye make-up.

I just wanted to spill this out. It bugs the doo out of me.

Happy New Year!

I have been MIA. I had surgery on my foot and life has been nothing but lying around. I have discovered Youtube and found a few people whose videos I LOVE! But all that lazing about is going to change, I promise! Here are my goals for the new year:

• Update my blog at least once a week, by Friday night. You guys are going to get sick(er) of me and my family.
• I refuse to let Chickie get under my skin. I won't be volunteering or offering to do things for her.. I won't be loaning her items I expect to see again. I won't walk on eggshells around her. If she can dish it out, she can take it. She's a grown woman with children for God's sake and I'm not the one who married her. I won't put up with her cut downs. I won't start anything evil with her but I will be calling her out when he gives me a big ball of crap. She does this mess because she's insecure and it's her problem, not mine.
• I will wear some kind of make-up every day. I haven't worn cosmetics in 10- yes, TEN- years and I am going to start wearing it again. I won't jump right into wearing an inch of make-up with every color of the rainbow slapped on my mug, but I am going to wear mascara, eyeliner, lip liner and lip color, at least, every day. I ordered some Kat Von D felt tip eyeliner from a seller on ebay. I never mastered this when I was learning to put on make-up when I was 15, and since I'll be 50 in March, it's about time, don't you think.
• Get better control of my money. Actually write my budget down, instead of rolling numbers through my head because I am afraid of the results. I got a slight bump in pay- an SSI mistake was caught- so I will have enough to pay my bills.
• I'm doing something I did a few years ago. I'm stopping buying drinks when I go out to eat and each time I do this, I will stick $2 in my bank toward Christmas shopping. No more Sonic Happy Hour drinks- well, maybe on my birthday!
• Keep the house tidier. Do the laundry in a reasonable time frame. I'm thinking it should be done by Saturday morning each week. I need to buy more hangers and get Bobo to move the dresser from the garage into my bedroom. But I will have my clothing put away, like any normal person.
• I'm not going to go to church out of guilt.I think God would appreciate it more if I go because I have a glad heart, not a guilty heart.
• I'm not loaning money. To anyone. For any reason. Don't even ask.
• Facebook usage is going to be VERY limited. How many cat pictures and cream of crap casserole recipes do I really need to view on a daily basis?

These are my resolutions, goals, rules, laws, whatever you call the things you vow to improve upon.

I just realized this is the first year I haven't included DIET, EXERCISE, LOSE WEIGHT, EAT MORE HEALTHY.  I hope this is a big step toward body/size acceptance. I already eat fairly healthy and I have been losing weight slowly, which is the best way it seems. If I want to eat junk, I can limit the portion, which I have already been doing.

Bobo is expecting to get his SSDI and all the back pay for 5 years. He is buying me a car and taking mine. I am looking at a used Fiat 500, which gets about a million miles a gallon. I am more comfortable in a smaller car and a Fiat 500 seems like it will serve my purposes well. Plus cupholders.

So there you have it, my do-able plan for this year!

What have you decided to change or improve this year?

In Which I Rant About My Son and His Wonderful Wife

If you don't want to hear about Root and Chickie, don't read this. Keep your opinions to yourself. Remember, this blog is for me, not you!

I help Root with his taxes every year. They have 2 kids, so they always get a refund. Chickie refuses to have anything to do with this except spend the money- big help, that girl is!

She also LOVES to call the IRS and state to find out just how soon the money will be available to pass through her fingers. So much so, she caused the state to hold back their refund and want more info. I told her to get the info together- i.e. make a list of donations- and I would help the take care of this. This was back in May. She still hasn't done it.

Now their lack of action has caused the IRS to question their refunds and want extra money for 2011. My son asked me to help. I told him what I needed. He told me all their important papers are all tossed together in a couple of boxes in the garage. No surprise.

His wife works the night shift and gets off at 8:00 in the morning. She farts around all day, buying crap fro Facebook resale sites. The kids get home at 3:30 and she goes to bed once they get home. My son cooks dinner when he gets home. She wakes up about 8:30, eats and runs off to work. She doesn't clean, she doesn't cook, she doesn't watch her kids. But she claims she has no time because she is so BUSY! Yeah, busy spending money.

My son was going to come over today and we were going to work on the taxes. But now he doesn't have tie to come over because HE HAS TO CLEAN THE HOUSE!!!! He works 11 hours a day after getting up early with the kids and getting them breakfast before seeing them off to school. She just runs around all day.

Why the heck can't she clean? Why can't she learn to cook? She's the one who demanded a nice gourmet kitchen. I guess she thinks a nice kitchen will cook for her.

I think my son is leaving her after the holidays. As much as I hate to admit it, I will be glad. I will miss the kids, but I hate seeing him tied down to such a gadabout.

One thing I hate to bring up is the fact that someone from our church asked me where their new house was located. She asked because she said she sees Chickie's car all the time at the house where they rented a few rooms from this weird dude. I told her where they live now and how they moved in June, and she said Chickie's car is over there everyday until about 2:00. She asked me if I thought Chickie was having an affair with the guy. I told her I had no idea. But now that I think about it, it is rather strange to move your family into the home of someone you found on Craigslist! I mean, DUH, Craigslist killer! If they are doing the funky monkey together, they were doing it when they were renting rooms, probably before. He drove a school bus and was home from 9:00 until 2:00, the times the students were in school. The times Chickie was off. I hate to think about them laying up together. I have no proof of this but it does make you think.

I'm still here!

I am still here, I just have had a lot of things come up lately: a disability hearing, a malfunction in the tire sensors in my car that scared the crap out of me, and I have started picking up the occasional baby-sitting gig. I feel 14 again.

I am just feeling overwhelmed. Plus someone used my bank card to order $200.00 worth of Vera Bradley purses. I was all for making a police report and letting the police work on it, but the people at Vera Bradley just shrugged it off and are going to put my money back. So I have numbers running through my head like nobody's business.

I am also trying to plan Thanksgiving dinner. We aren't doing the traditional turkey, we are doing bar-be-que with every fixing known to man. Ummmmm, pork is it!