Sad I've Been Gone?

OK, I’m gonna lay it on the line here. I am a neglectful, absentee blogger. At least recently. Here it is, the middle of June and I haven’t written anything in four months. The gaps just seem to be getting bigger, don’t they? In my defense, I have a full time job, four children under the age of five, and I’m trying to lose weight. If that doesn’t qualify as ‘being busy’ then I don’t believe anything does.

Let me try and fill in this gap of time here. My last post was on Ella’s one week birthday. A few weeks after that I learned that the Board of Education, my employer, was implementing a Reduction In Force due to budget cuts. Some 120 people were going to be laid off. One Friday I got a call from work about my leave and health insurance. I was told that since I would not be receiving a check that month that I needed to come in and pay my insurance out of pocket. Ha! Yeah, right, like I have $450 just laying around unclaimed. So I told them to cancel it. I was then transferred to the administrator of my department. He informed me that as of the new school year, July 1, my position would no longer exist. Did…did I just get RIFed? You sure did! When I got back from maternity leave I would have about a month and a half of work and then that was it.

So this is what my life looked like three months ago. Three kids, new baby, soon to be unemployed, and essentially a single parent. Oh, yeah, I never mentioned that one. Dave moved out right before Christmas. The day of the Sandy Hook shooting in fact. Now I’ll always remember both of those events. 

He was there when I had Ella, though, but that’s a different story altogether. It’s a good one, too, that I will be telling. I think hers is my favorite of all my birth stories.

Sorry, tangent.

Anyway, that was what was going on. So I started trying to figure out what to do. I kinda saw this coming so it wasn’t a total shock. Here I was at a crossroads. What to do? Try to find a job that makes what I make now? Maybe go to school? I decided to draw unemployment and go back to school. The hard part there is go to school for what? I know what I want to do, and while there is a possibility to make very good money at it, it is by no means a guarantee. I need a guarantee.

I had planned to go to school for Public Relations and Journalism, maybe get paid for doing this very thing I’m doing right now. My mother has been suggesting the medical field to me once a week for I don’t know how long. It’s true, you can always find listings for RNs in the paper and online. Could I do that, though? Is that something I would be able to force myself to do?

Full disclosure: I love hospitals. I always have. I know it’s weird to some people, but that’s just me. Dave, for example, doesn’t ever want to go in hospitals and he even has to force himself to when I have a baby. He should not be a nurse. I like hospitals. Does that mean I would be a good candidate? It means that I wouldn’t dread going to work because of the atmosphere, but could I do the actual work?

I finally came to the conclusion that the amount of money I would make would be decent compensation for the things I might have to do. I like people and the helping of them. I have four kids so I’m pretty used to taking care of people. This way I could get paid for it. Is being a nurse my calling in life? No. However, I no longer have the luxury of doing the things that I want to do for myself. I have small children and I would like to be able to buy them shoes before their toes start coming through the ends of the ones they are wearing. Hell, I’d like to be able to buy them shoes AFTER their toes start coming through the ends of the ones they’re wearing. So far writing a blog hasn’t afforded me that, so as much as I like it, it’s just not paying the bills. Being a nurse would. I just can’t think of another occupation that I can achieve within three years of schooling that can pay me as much as an RN will.
Oops, another tangent.

…what was I even saying?

Oh! Anyway, so here I sit at what will be my desk for another two weeks. When I leave on June 28 I will be four days away from having worked here for six years, the longest I’ve ever worked anywhere. I don’t think anyone will notice I’m gone.

School has been out for three weeks and my parents have sacrificingly agreed to watch them all until I get the boot at the end of the month. I appreciate it so very much yet at the same time feel guilty that I have to even ask it. I realize now why parents are always so much more excited than their kids when school starts back. Connor is already asking to go back to school, though. I don’t think that’ll last too many more years. He will be in Kindergarten next year. It doesn’t seem like I should have a kid in Kindergarten. But my oldest nephew just turned fourteen and I kept him two weeks after he was born so that’s not right either.

However, last week I was mistaken for one of the teenagers taking driver’s ed at the Board this year. I think I’m ahead of the curve.

I will briefly touch on the fact that I am something of a single parent right now. There, I think that’ll do. It is what it is, and while it’s nice to have an extra pair of hands at times, the only way I am struggling is financially. Sometimes I hear “I don’t know how you do it!” Thanks and all, but…what are my options?

I am also waging my war on fat yet again. This is not baby weight. This is Easter candy weight. I sabotaged myself this time. True to form, two weeks after having Ella I weighed ten pounds less than I started. It was the consumption of Easter candy that caused this weight gain. I was actually told later that some people thought I looked sick. My body did what it always does and set up me up for a good looking summer but I went and made it go all funhouse mirror on me. I think this time was the hardest it’s ever been to start back dieting. I’ll save that for another post. I will entitle it ‘My Love/Hate Relationship with Cadbury.’

Hopefully, now that I will have ample time on my hands thanks to the Board of Education, I will be writing more. Tell your friends! And then they’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends… And so on...

This. Is. Craverland.

Today there will be more than one post up for your perusal, if all goes according to my plan.   The first one is now, obviously.  The second will probably be this evening.  It’s a special day and you’ll learn why later.

So I thought I’d do a little state of the union here in Craverland.   DeathMetalMommyville, if you will.  It is a time in which I am profoundly glad that I’m sure two-thirds of my kids will not remember.  Things are…stressful.  Not really so much for them, but there’s no way that it doesn’t affect them somehow.  Connor and Sully go to school every day, and Connor is never happy it’s the weekend as there is no school.  Sully is progressing and Connor gets in trouble about weekly for fighting.  Sigh.  He’s four, he doesn’t get it.

Lily is bouncy and happy and getting funnier every day.  She even had two successful trips to the potty yesterday sporting her new Hello Kitty panties, which she insists on taking off while she’s sitting there.  Lily is not a problem.  The problem is what to do with her.  I can’t afford daycare and there is no longer anyone to watch her at home during the day.  Dave has gotten a job (that he is doing completely awesome at, might I add) and so has Uncle Sean, Lily’s second favorite man o’ the house.  They work at the same place and pretty much the same hours.

Much as I hate it, I had to ask my parents to watch Lily all last week and they did it because they are fantastic grandparents and knew that I would probably have a nervous breakdown if they didn’t.  Oh, it’s coming.  However, I may have found someone to watch her who does not charge as much as all the other daycares.  She was formerly a nanny to a doctor and she lives a few houses away from us.  It’s just the paying part that I worry about.

Since there is no one at the house during the day that means there’s no one to pick the boys up from school either.  After school care is offered at the school and is a lot of fun for them.  However, it also costs money.  About $35 a week for them both.  I remember there being after school care when I was a kid, but I had no idea it cost money.  Why would I?  Money is not something that occurs to a kid and that’s probably for the best.  I don’t want my kids to be aware of our money troubles at all because I don’t want them to worry.

I can remember being in elementary school , and my sister informing me that our parents were not doing well on money at all.  After that I constantly worried about it.  I didn’t exactly know how to worry about something like that because it was a number game to which I did not have the numbers.  My head just worried “we don’t have enough money.”  I never want my kids to think like that, even if it does happen to be true.  That’s the parents’ job to deal with, not the kids.

On top of all that, I can never seem to make headway on any chores.  There is so much laundry that I don’t think it is actually possible for it all to be clean at one time.  I really don’t believe it.  Our dishwasher hasn’t worked in months so now I’m the dishwasher and, sorry, I don’t do it every day.  Yes, I know that’s awful, but I’m rarely home!  When I am, the kids are, too, and they need to be attended.

So, no, the dishwasher is no longer functional.  It gets better.  Saturday night I went to toss a couple of grilled cheesers together for supper and noticed that when I went to ignite the burner on the stove it wasn’t clicking.  I could smell gas, but nothing was happening.  I looked up and noticed that the clock on the oven was off as well.  None of the appliances plugged into the power strip on that wall were working.  Of those, the oven and refrigerator.  Of course, the two main appliances aren’t working.  I had to call Dave where we was working at the track in Woodstock and tell him.  He told me to flip this switch, unplug this, turn this off, reset that, plug it back in.  None of it worked.  A breaker wasn’t tripped either.  He said he’d look at it when he came home.  That’s usually about one o’clock Sunday morning.

We didn’t have a lot of food to begin with but now what little we had, we had no way to cook.  Scared yet?  I put the kids to bed and went to sleep myself.  I awoke some hours later to banging around in the kitchen.  I almost got up to tell whoever it was to keep it down, but just went back to sleep.  I had to get up once after that to get Lily some milk.  It wasn’t until the next morning that I noticed the refrigerator was now plugged up half way across the room.  Dave had moved it to a working outlet.  We’ve figured that it’s the outlet that needs to be replaced, as things work when plugged up other places.  Just one more thing to add to the list headed “Things That Make Me Want to Kill People.”  That’s Dave’s list.  Mine is entitled “Things That Make Me Cry Harder.”

Another fun little occurrence is I believe my wallet has been stolen.  Luckily there was no money in it.  Why would there be?  But it does leave me driving without a license, so I’m driving very…let’s say cautiously.  Another word is slowly.  Incidentally, I recently heard a few people discussing the ridiculous things you have to have to get a new license now.  Six forms of ID?  Really?  Well , one was my license…so that’s out.  Birth certificate?  That costs money to obtain.  Naturally.  I’m really just hoping that one of the kids grabbed it off the table and absconded with it, to be found at a later date.

At times I find myself stressing about who’s going to watch the new baby when the time comes, as well as Lily.  I try not to think far into that, for fear of hyperventilating.  Like I don’t have enough to worry about already.

Speaking of new baby, Connor has insisted the whole time that it was going to be a boy, but all of a sudden now he says it’s a girl.  We’ll know in a few weeks.  I am a few days shy of 17 weeks so that ultrasound is coming up.  I’m starting to wash what maternity clothes I think might fit me.  I still don’t really need them yet, but just in case.  I’ve been taking my measurements once a month or so ever since, well, ever since last August really.  I just haven’t stopped and now they’re going up.  I have increased about 16.5 inches all over since the beginning of June, and as luck would have it, mostly in favorable locations.

The trade-off here is this time around I’m a good bit more emotional.  I think that’s mostly due to current situations and extra stress levels.  However, in any other way it’s just as though I’m not pregnant at all.  Except for the dizziness and oddly low blood pressure at times, nothing’s much changed.

So that’s what’s going on here.  How are things with you?

Don’t forget to check back this evening for a bonus post!