YAY, the Durango finally sold! Well, we’re not actually getting the money till Friday, but it will be in CASH, and it’s enough to pay off the principle aaaaaand the credit cards I used to bring the payments current and get some maintenance done. I had been fully prepared to write off the amount I had to put on my credit cards in the hopes that we at least get enough to cover the principle, so the fact that we’re getting enough to take care of everything just tickles me pink. Whew, what a load off, y’know? So that, plus my FINAL van payment coming up in December, well, things really are starting to look up for me financially in a way that I haven’t been able to enjoy, ummmm… ever! And by that I mean SAVINGS. Actually being able to pay ALL of my bills (on time) and put a little money into savings each month! Perhaps there really may be a house somewhere on my horizon??

Okay, so Thanksgiving. Y’know, I was really planning to expound on Bub’s eternal idiocy once again. I was gonna write all about his very irritated early morning rant/lecture to me about all of my apparent shortcomings as a human being because I was once again failing to communicate with him properly or support him adequately enough in his first attempt at turkey roasting. But y’know what? Quite honestly, it’s just more of the same ‘ol shit, so really, need I go there yet again? Y’all know what a raving lunatic he is. And even if you can’t fully comprehend the tiny nuances of what a conversation with him is truly like when he feels he’s been wronged in some way, it’s okay. Because I no longer need that validation that his behavior is unacceptable and that I don’t have live with it anymore. I get that. Thus the separate addresses. ;D He is who he is, and he’ll always be in my life one way or another, I can accept that. But by golly, at least I have a life to look forward to now. Anyway, Thanksgiving (and the turkey) turned out fine. We played cards with his parents, ate pie, mmmmmm piiiiiiie, and all was well.

Then I got to go to my brother and SIL’s house for another Thanksgiving (leftovers) feast on Saturday. Now that was nice! Em played with her cousins, we yakked and yakked, no tension, no yelling, (except to tell the kids to cool it!) just a nice, relaxing time. We wrapped up some food to take to my granny in the nursing home and wish her a happy Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, she was feeling under the weather and not up for the company. My SIL asked one of the nurses to put the food in the fridge for her to enjoy later, but we both suspected that it wouldn’t make it much past the night shift crew. Bummer. I didn’t even get to hug her because she thought she might have something viral and said we should keep our distance. :( But after our disappointingly brief visit, we decided to take advantage of the lovely, unseasonably warm weather and stop off at a local park before heading back to my bro. & SIL’s house.

Here’s the only pic that I felt comfortable posting since I’m not real keen on sharing pics of other people (especially their kids) without their knowledge and permission. My brother and SIL still don’t know about this blog (some of the seemingly few people left, I presume ;D) and I’d really like to keep it that way. I’m not totally sure why I’m still holding out on that front, but I guess I just want a little piece of something that I can keep for myself. Plus, they seem just a bit too close to home for my comfort level, KWIM?

Sunday, Em and I spent the entire day out, enjoying her last little bit of freedom before heading back to school today. We found a fabulous little park in a nearby city with a fishing lake, walking trails, playground equipment, etc. I think we spent the better part of an hour at the water's edge, just basking in the warm air, cool breezes coming off the lake, and serene quiet of mother and daugher working side by side on a mission to dig up, and add to our collection, every single little shell we could reach without taking an untimely plunge. She told me later that this was one of her very best days with me ever. It's funny how little it really takes to make kids happy, isn't it? And as we were leaving, we happened to spot a group (flock? who knows?) of ducks crowding around another park-goer sporting an irresistable bag of stale bread heels. I was immediately reminded of some of my fondest childhood memories of my brother and I taking drives with our grandpa out to the duck pond near my grandparents home with our own bags of stale bread heels. I miss him so. By far, one of the finest men I will ever know. I, of course, have every intention of bringing Em back with her very own bag of stale bread heels just as soon as possible.

Yikes, it's been a whole week! I don't really have time for a real post right now as Em's been out of school all week for Thanksgiving (hey, how come all I ever got was three stinkin days?!) and I am humbly reminded once again how difficult it is to work aaaaaaand try to keep an active 9 year old entertained/occupied without allowing unlimited access to the boob tube. Right now I've got her trying out that Conair home spa that I picked up a Bub's yard sale. It's fabulous, she's been in there for an hour with her Bratz and plenty of bubbles, ahhhhhh...

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still here, well, in body anyway, my mind hightailed it outta here loooooong ago! ;D We're doing Thanksgiving at Bub's with his parents tomorrow, and then Em and I are supposed to go to my brother and SIL's on Saturday. We plan to go visit my granny in the nursing home, but have no plans to see my dad and stepmom. Gee, haven't heard from them in a while, wonder if my stepmom is mad at me or something?? ;D Sorry, couldn't resist. Yep, still no contact from her. I wonder how long she'll keep it up?

Well, that's all I can muster for now, but I promise to make a real post soon. After all, I can't NOT share how our upcoming Thanksgiving experience with Bub actually cooking the turkey for the first time ever goes. BTW, I had to explain (in detail) how to baste a turkey after he got his panties in a wad when the turkey roasting instructions I emailed him were apparently too vague. Idiot.

Oh… dear… god… See's Candy has arrived here in the Natural State, nooooooooooo! While at the mall on Sunday, we just happened upon a new booth featuring the one and only, See's Candy. Complete with white and black clad ladies handing out… gulp, free samples. Obviously, I had no choice but to partake in such a thoughtful and generous offering… no really, no choice... right? ;D Anyway, I needed this like I need a hole in the head. Hell, next thing you know a brand spanking new Round Table Pizza joint will open up, and then I’ll really be doomed. For those unfamiliar with Round Table, it is a west coast (where I grew up) pizza chain, which quite frankly, no other nasty greasy pizza I’ve had the misfortune to consume can even compare to. Honestly, Round Table pizza has ruined me for all others, which I suppose I should be grateful for considering how it’s the one and only reason why pizza has not become a binge/trigger food for me here in Arkansas. Anyway, enough about that, now to just stay away from the mall…

Get this; Em’s school puts on a family Thanksgiving lunch every year, so naturally, every year we go to it. In the meantime, I’ve been sending Bub weekly school emails to update him about her work for the week, what they’re doing and learning about, and any other upcoming school related things. For the past two weeks I’ve made sure to include the upcoming Thanksgiving lunch with the date and time listed. So Tuesday I sent him an email asking if he was gonna need a ride on Thursday, and what I got back was, “this Thursday?” (Ummm, yuh?) Yes, this Thursday 11/16 at 12:40 pm. And this is the reply I got back from him:

*Sorry for the spelling, I just copied and pasted, and he obviously doesn’t believe in spell checker.

well, i needed more of a notice than that. I already took my day off this week on friday. I can't take off at all now. I really need a good week in advance to schedule stuff because I can't just find out 2 days ahead of time and change things with jim (his boss). I can, but htere is a lot of bullshit that I have to deal with in order to do it. So I guess I am not going to be able to come.

In the future, I need to know as soon as you know the dates of things. That way I can schedule it. That goes back to the conversation we have had hundres of times about you not letting me know stuff.

So, apparently he doesn’t bother to read the weekly updates even though he ranted and raved and insisted upon being included in all aspects of Em’s life, thus prompting me to start sending said updates in the first place. Anyway, this is all I wrote back:

It's been in the school stuff email for the last two weeks.

Ha, bite me buddy. Sorry to be so juvenile, but that’s how I felt. Finally I had some ground to stand on. Of course I knew he would find a way to shift the blame back to me somehow, but at least, if only for a moment, I had him on something… and I liked it! :D

Aw rats, I’ve been busted!! My long distance provider sent me a letter saying that I’m over using my "unlimited" nationwide calling plan and that they’re gonna switch me to a 10 cent per minute plan unless I call to set up a different plan to “better meet my needs”. Ug. Well, I guess I can’t really expect them to approve of using a residential line for telemarketing huh? Gee, wonder what tipped them off? Perhaps the 16 pages worth of 1 minute phone calls all over the country? Gee, ya think? Oh well, I suppose I’ll either have to shell out A LOT more dough and switch over to a business line, or go with something like Vonage, yippee! And y’know what’s interesting? I’m not stressing and freaking out about it. Sure, it sucks monkey butt, but that’s life. What can I do about it? Yup, I likes me some Paxil, good stuff I tell ya! ;D

Bub’s having a yard sale this weekend. He asked if I wanted to put anything in it, and if I would help him go through our storage building and haul stuff back to his house with my van. Ugh, helping him move, arrange, go through stuff was always one of my least favorite things to do with him. Nothing Em or I could ever do was right during these horribly stressful excursions. Constantly critical, demanding, easily irritated, and an overall joy to be around, as usual. So y’know what I did? I said no. I was nice about it of course, but I declined to help. Woohoo! He ended up getting his roommate to help and they borrowed my van, but that was fine by me as long as I didn’t have to participate. Ahhhh… Have I mentioned lately how elated I am not to have to live with crap like this anymore? :)

I got to see a grown-up movie last night, woohoo! Em spent Friday night with Bub to help with the yard sale Saturday morning, so I took the opportunity to go to the movies all by my lonesome, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Stranger Than Fiction was really good, though I expected it to be more of a comedy than the dramatic comedy that it turned out to be. But I didn’t care, it was a grown-up movie. Movie going is one of the things I’ve missed most since becoming a mom. Sure, we went to a lot of movies, but we were never ones to leave Em with a babysitter (or anyone for that matter) so our movie choices typically had to be kid friendly, especially after she got old enough to understand and be interested in the film. Un-kid related side note, but I also REALLY missed being able to sit where I wanted, in the back of the theater, instead of right up front so Bub could see better. I always came away from the theater with a crick in my neck and a terrible headache. So last night I got to sit in the very back row, and enjoyed the whole thing crick and headache free for a change, ahhhhh. :)

I stopped by Bub’s yard sale this morning and bought myself a Conair Thermal Spa from one of his roommates for five bucks. It was freezing out because a cold front came through last night and poor Em was turning into a popsicle despite being thoroughly bundled up. A friend of hers from down the street had come over to sit with her and keep her company until Bub got on to Em for playing with her friend instead of helping with the yard sale like he expected her to. Among other things, he told her that he didn’t have time to babysit her today, so she’d better go home with me unless she was ready to work. Naturally, after his “talk”, she opted to go home with me despite how excited she had been about helping with the yardsale. I can’t say that I blame her, we could both see how the day was gonna go had she stayed. So we took the friend home with us and now they’re happily playing in her room. Ahhh, life is good… :)

I got a nice little scam in the mail today. It was a real, bonafide check for $3,300.00 from a real company and written off a real bank account. The notice said I had won $200,000.00 in some supposed contest I had entered and the $3300 was to cover the “non residential government taxes”. All I had to do was deposit the check and send a money gram back and then they would send the rest of my winnings, woohoo! Oh puhleeeeeze! I looked up the company that was on the check and found it to be an actual company in MD that does heat and A/C, so I called them and asked to speak with the manager. Right away she asked where I was calling from because apparently they’ve been getting calls from all over the country. Some scam artists gained access to their bank account and has been sending checks out in their name right and left. She said they were able to close the account before they lost any money, but all these people who don’t know any better are depositing the phony checks which subsequently bounce, but not before they’re out all that money. >:( Anyway, she thanked me for the call and I wished them luck. Then I quickly shot off an email to one of the local news stations in case they want to let others know about this, and after that I called my MIL to warn her knowing that she would have deposited the check in a heartbeat had she received one as well. That was pretty much my excitement for the day, can ya dig it? ;D

We took Em out for her excellent report card reward this weekend. We went to a place in Little Rock that has miniature golf, racetracks, bumper boats (in the summer), paintball, batting cages, and an arcade. We did the racetrack, mini golf, and played some arcade games. The racetrack was pretty cool because Em and I were able to get a double seater and enjoy it together. Bub just watched cuz he didn’t think the little racecars would support his weight, gee, bummer. ;D The mini golf was typical mini golf with Bub, tense and stressful with many “I hate daddy!” and “he’s mean!” whispers from Em. Ug. I’ll have to bring her back by ourselves one day so she can enjoy herself like she should be able to, poor kid. Then we took her over to the mall where she got to pick out some new earrings. She was on a mission for hoops, not too big and not too small. Of course we found the perfect pair at Claire’s, the earring mecca of malls everywhere. Then, on the way home, Em conveniently forgot all of the day’s stresses and announced that she wanted to stay the night at daddy’s! Huh? Okay, whatever chick. So we grabbed some stuff and I dropped them off at his house after we got back into town. I was supposed to pick her up at 4:00 on Sunday, but she called long before that asking to come home early. No problem. Except now I’m seeing a definite pattern of acting out after spending long periods of time with him. It’s my opinion that she spends so much time trying to be perfect and repressed that once she gets home she has the need to comfortably let go and be herself… to the extreme at times. So, in the middle of a typical post daddy’s meltdown, I was holding her and telling her that I’m glad she feels comfortable enough to express her feelings, but that she has to work on the proper way to do so without yelling, acting out, and being disrespectful. Then she just kinda stopped and said that she does it because she can with me. Because she knows that I’m not gonna get mad and yell and scare her and stay mad and punish her the way daddy does. And that she’s too scared to act like that in front of daddy because she knows how he’ll react, but she knows she’s safe with me. She also said that she knows I don’t deserve it, but sometimes she just gets so worked up that she doesn’t know how to control herself. Anyway, we’re working on getting a game plan together to help her recognize when she’s starting to lose control, and to help her regain control on her own. Unfortunately there’s nothing I can do about Bub being Bub, so I guess we’ll just continue working around it as best we can. I often wonder what she’d be like today had I left him when she was a baby like I know I should have? Trying not to kick myself more, just… wondering…

Hmmmm, well isn’t this interesting? I had another smallish Bub incident on Tuesday and either the Paxil is taking affect or I’m just getting used to his idiocy. But since I’m already used to his idiocy then I gotta assume it’s the Paxil. Em decided last minute that she didn’t want him to come trick or treating with us, and I can’t say as I blame her knowing how perfect she’d have to try to be the whole time, as it always has been in previous years. Anyway, she told me this on Tuesday morning and before I had a chance to really think about how I’d handle it, Bub called me to see what our plans for trick or treating would be. Ummm, uh, oh, um, fumble, spurt. Bleh. Needless to say, he was pissed. His immediate reaction was one of hurt feelings, even though one of his biggest assurances is that it wouldn’t hurt his feelings if she doesn’t want him to participate in some activities. So when I reminded him of that fact he quickly made sure to change his story enough to place the blame squarely on me for how crappy he was feeling, as was expected. Yes, I realize that telling him on the day of the event was pretty rude and inconsiderate, especially since we both assumed he’d be going, but apparently I was supposed to have been able to read Em’s mind and figure all of this out last week so he would have plenty of advance notice seeing as how he has such a hopping social life to work around and all. My goodness, between playing World of Warcraft for hours on end and watching movies from his DVD collection of well over 500 titles, it’s a wonder how he even finds the time to bitch at me when I screw up somehow. But by golly, he makes the time! Priorities y’know, gotta love ‘em. Anyway, he bitched and moaned, blamed, guilted, projected and chastised, all the usual stuff, and then he had to go so we hung up, thank goodness! And then it was time for the usual flood of anxiety and overwhelming pressure to somehow fix this and make it all better, right? Except… the real flood never came. Of course I was somewhat anxious, and I did work in earnest to smooth things over, but I didn’t shut down and I didn’t let it prevent me from functioning and working normally. I processed my feelings, dealt with them best I could, and then I was able to let go and remind myself that he can be pissed and that’s okay. It’s not like he’s gonna start a custody war over not getting enough notice on our plans. This is life, shit happens, next time I’ll make sure to find out ahead of time if Em wants to do things differently than normal, and that’s it. Whew! Anyway, he left it up to Em about whether he would still go with us or not, (she chose not) and I did have a talk with her about being more considerate when it comes to making or un-making plans with him, and that’s all she wrote. We went trick or treating by ourselves and had a fun, relaxed time together, just as I always knew we would. Here are some pics, she was a vampiress, or, as she put it, Count Dracula's wife. BTW, I managed to come through the candyfest mostly unscathed. Only 1/2 a tootsie roll and 1 peanut M&M. And neither induced the urge to binge, woohoo!

In other news, I went to Em’s school to read a book aloud to her class today. Her teacher offered an open invitation to all of the parents at the beginning of the year, so I finally decided to take her up on it. I chose one of my and Em’s all time favorite children’s books; Skippyjon Jones. If you haven’t read it, you must, it’s hysterical! The reading went beautifully, I had the entire room of fourth graders totally enthralled with the lively story, and they even cheered and clapped raucously at the end. Woohoo, score one for mom! Em was grinning from ear to ear and I was thankful for the opportunity to participate in this way before it becomes monumentally un-cool to have your mom at school. Something that I’m sure is coming much sooner than I’m prepared for, sigh…