What's new here...

My mother in law passed away two weeks ago, since then alot has happened and I honestly haven't been able to get on here and post so a a quick recap. My in-laws have never accepted Anastasia as a 'real' grandchild. she's adopted, and so does not count. I can live with the fact that my four from my previous relationships are not Bob's and the exclusion from the grandchildrens trips and grandparent time is fine, doesn't really bother me much. But Anastasia is Bob's. Period, we adopted her she is by law our child. We raised her, loved her and continue to adore everything about her. My father in law gets up at the fucking funeral and does this speech where he talks about how grateful he is that he and Judy had 7 beautiful grandchildren to brighten their lives. Anastasia is sitting there. She is not retarded and can count. Jennifer, Erika, Samantha, Haley, Corey, Angela, John-Monte. Wait that's 7 already. First she gets upset because John, Jason, Katie and Kevin are omitted before she realizes that she herself doesn't exist in the list. WTF. I have to explain to my 10 year old, who knows she's adopted that her grandparents don't consider her their grandchild. I hate this man for doing this, but then he tops it! Yes there's more. I fly up to NY the day after the funeral and get an email notifying me that there is a new post on my mother-in-law's memorial blog. From my father-in-law. In THAT little poetic piece the jackass names Bob the sensitive one, Michelle the strong one, Greg the angel, Haley the love of their lives and Corey the mischievous one. I'm not there, Anastasia is not there. Fuck him, I know you can't choose your family but as the world is my witness here, I will never ever have another thing to do with this man. I don't exist so I won't be missed. He can eat shit and bark at the moon, I am DONE with this crap.
So I'm up in NY and I spent a wonderful week with my Aunt Suzy and got to visit with Aunt Kathy, Kevin, Brittney and the boys and my cousins John and Tara and her family. I can't even express how I felt getting off that plane in NY. I was home though and I needed to be. Now that my mother is gone, I miss NY so much. I gave Florida the old college try, I did. 17 years of this crap. But after living in NY, California and here as well as visiting all the other states during my year long trip across country, I can speak with confidence that Florida is the worst place to live in the country. PERIOD. The food sucks, the people FROM Florida sucks (it's important you stress that when referring to Florida because 90% of the population are from other states and those people are all walking around saying the same thing "This sucks!"
I went online to look at NY equestrian properties, guess what...yep way cheaper than here. In fact I would say considering I can get a place there for 300k with 3 acres a house and a barn on Long Island vs the 1/2 acre with a trailer you get here in Tampa Bay for 500k I am better off going home. My kid can get a better education. I can be happy and make money, everything is there, I should be too.
Now I just have to get Bob on board. This may be the end of us because I'm pretty sure he is going to want to go to TN to live near his father, so WWIII may be on the horizon. Today I have to clean the house up and get ready for his return. He's off rebuilding an old Navy airplane up in Georgia with his dad. I need the house to be clean when I start my pitch. If there is any sign of a mess it will lessen my argument with him. I know how he thinks and he will  hone in on something and that will be the end of it.
ttyl

Incompetance makes me have hot-flashes

So the baby is on her 3rd week at the new school. And I get a letter from the school district about her old school stating that 60% of the school is illiterate and they are going to restructure the school because they've tested at this level for 7 years straight. They told me last year (after the fact) that Anastasia scored a perfect score on her FCAT and they had the news crews out to fuss over her. So before she switched schools they sent her home with the FCAT report. I read the report and it shows her as having a score of of 1707 in Reading and 1727 in Math. The grade level 'perfect' is 1456 in Reading and 1444 in Math. So I figure they got 'perfect' from her surpassing the grade level 'perfect'. Well last night I go to the school district website to find out more about the school she's in and THEIR grades. They score fine, but I came across this whole FCAT thing. So I pick up the report she brought home and give it another look see. It wasn't adding up, they said she scored perfect, and the score you need for graduation is 1926 in Reading and 1889 in Math. Which by the way is STILL not a perfect score. The highest score you can get is 2638 in Reading and 2330 in Math. So I start reading the report from top to bottom to see where the incompetance came into play. Are they just so retarded they were just calling the kid perfect because she was one of the 5 kids in the school that passed? NOPE I look up at the top left-hand corner of the report (it's a 2 page folded dealy) and there is my daughter Katie's co-worker's kids name. It's NOT my kid's report!!!
I immediately have the hot flash from hell. Are you kidding me? You imbeciles are so freaking incompetant that you can't even send the reports home with the corresponding child? Are the teachers there illiterate too?
So I call the school this morning first thing and ask for her scores. You guessed it folks. Miss A got a 2638 in Reading and a 1800 in Math. Not too shabby! So she is, according to the state of Florida and what the ignoramous tells me on the phone, about Sophmore in college level, give or take a month and some brush ups in the Math. She also informs me that had she NOT been at that school she'd probably have scored way better. Thanks, that helps.
So BACK to the school district for info on what we can do to make sure my kid doesn't end up losing all interest in school because she's on whole nother plane of existance than the rest of these rocket scientists. I find out that as long as she passes the entrance exam and continues in her regular school, she is entitled to attend college for half the day at NO CHARGE through the end of 11th grade. THEN she can go the full day to college at NO CHARGE getting her BA simultaneously with her High School Diploma. (because a person with a freaking BA needs a High School Diploma?) anyway, because she's adopted, she gets 4 years fully paid including books, living expenses and tuition at any school in the state. So if she gets the bachelors degree while attending high school on the counties dime, she can actually attend graduate school straight after her high school/college graduations (which will be within days of each other) and have her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at no charge by the time the kid is 21.

Hot...then sweaty...then freezing~ awesome

I went probably 2 months without having a hotflash. I thought, no problem that wasn't bad a few months of severe discomfort and now I'm fine. Then I went to Diane's house to sleep over with the baby 2 weeks ago. You know what, she gave me a hormone boost or something because for 1 day I got my friend (after 4 months of not having it) and then the flashes started again. I could smash Bob's face in with a frying pan he keeps it SO COLD in this house. He is inhumane, seriously. The man sees me shivering, hears me complaining and then says things like "God it's freaking hot, can you turn the air down a few degrees?"

On a happy note, I got the website up for my Avon account. here's the link. They have some awesome stuff for the holidays coming up and I'll be making up some gift baskets too for anyone that likes having things done for them.
http://ldoherty.avonrepresentative.com/

I also got my etsy shop open! Which if you look there should be some of my stuff listed right here!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Jhendiah


Baby steps! (fly lady mantra...I love that woman)

I'm getting better at this...

About 2 weeks ago I had invited our friend Vinnie over to stay with us. I figured he could spend some time talking to me about working with the charity and doing some shows. He was going to have a meeting with Chris on Saturday and spend time with friends on Sunday (his bday). I told Bob that he was coming and this prompted a 2 week long anxiety attack where Bob nagged incessantly for me to clean the house. To which I responded "and where would you like me to put everything?"

Vinnie's visit was this weekend so my hoarder hubby allowed me to tackle the massive pile of videos that he had piled up on the diningroom table. Now when I say massive I mean ridiculous. I have been buying movies since 1981. I have about 1000 vhs movies and about 600 dvd's. Give or take 1 or 2, it was a big pile. I wanted to sell the vhs tapes on amazon because I could at least get 2-3 bucks a piece and then we wouldn't have the massive pile any more. Bob the crazy person told me I could sell them (these are mine, bought most of them prior to even meeting him) if I waited and let him catalog them so he could replace whatever I sold. Now the logical thing comes to mind right? If we are selling them WHY would we want to replace them? Now if that did pop into your head let me make it even more confusing. Bob is a computer geek. He set up a special server in the livingroom that has a 4 terrabyte harddrive that he has downloaded all these movies onto. So you can just browse through the list, which is alphabetical, click on what you want to see and it plays on the tv! So logical types like yourself would say, why Bob? I'll tell you why, because Bob is crazy. So I didn't get to sell them, I had to fill up 5 big rubbermaid tubs with movies and squeeze them into the den. The den now is officially to full (five foot high piles of stuff) to the point where you can't take more than 1 step into the room. But at least we can eat in the diningroom again.
Vinnie came over and I was going to cook.
Bob: "Did you invite Chris?"
Me:  "No, I wanted to discuss business with Vinnie and he will be seeing Chris this weekend so he need to be here butting into whatever we're talking about."
Bob: "Well Chris is going to wind up coming over because I told him Vinnie was coming."
Me:  "WHY?"
Bob: "We can go to Mugs with Chris and then take off with Vinnie right after dinner. That way Chris won't come by the house and trap us for the whole night."
Me:  "FINE"

So we went to Mugs. Had dinner with Chris and Sara and Vinnie and then took Vinnie back home. Chris followed us home and stayed until 10:30 at night. I didn't get to discuss anything with him because by the time Chris left I was annoyed, it was late and Bob was doing his usual 'we have company let me tear the house apart like I'm the clean freak.' routine.
Now let me explain the last part. Whenever someone comes over, my husband runs around like a freaking maniac scrubbing and telling people what a lazy slob I am. So while Vinnie was over Bob emptied and cleaned the refridgerator. Vinnie (just like every other guest we have) asked "Why is he doing that NOW? Does he ever sit down?" I had to explain that normally Bob lays on the couch doing nothing, he only does it when we have company. ~sigh~
Then Kiki came over to take pics of some of my handiwork to sell on etsy. I put up my first 7 items today and will 'try' to post at least 5 more every week. I'm going to give 25% of every sale to the charity (Foundation for the Historic Arts) and use the rest to buy materials and have some money to live on.
Writing everything I'm doing on here is actually more incentive to do things and helps with that realization that all those little idiosyncrasies of his are never going to change and I am going to have to want a better life for myself bad enough that I make a move.
It's really not easy though.

Well I wasn't on the news...

I went and bought paint. Misty beige. Neutral and NOT pepto bismol pink like my husband and his friend painted my living room when I was not here. So I tell Bob (not protecting his name because he is not innocent here) I sat the big guy down and explained, in english...
Me: Honey my mother died in this house, I am 47 years old and have been waiting 13 years for you to be 'ready to move' and I don't want to be 70 and have the big move be to a freaking nursing home. We have to fix the house up and sell it.
Bob: I have no problem fixing the house up and selling it, we'll put this one on the market just as soon as you sell the two houses your mother left you and get us another house. I'm not going to lose 'MY HOME'.

fade to
Me in the kitchen.

Bob and Shawn (daughter Katie's version of Bob) and Chris (the Pepto offender mentioned earlier) go into the livingroom and start putting holes in the walls we just finished painting. They mount the TV on the wall, which is fine but THEN they put two of the many BOSE speakers on the wall. On either side of the TV. (mind you there are ALOT more speakers that go with this 'set'.

I get mad. Bob wants to know why. I tell him, that in order to sell this dump we have to decorate appropriately. Did we learn NOTHING watching HGTV??? He says "These are an expensive surround sound system!"
I say "I can go spend a couple thousand dollars on a gold and diamond grill for my teeth, it will be expensive, but will anyone want to see it?"

He gets up and proceeds to finish putzing around the livingroom. In his world the conversation is over and we are stuck with these 'render the house unsellable speakers' and in my world he strokes out dies and I hire someone to come in and patch the holes in the wall I made while ripping the speakers out of it after Bob's funeral. I did not get my wish and he then proceeded to saw the back off the NEW entertainment center so his ginormous components that we never use and don't need will fit.
Of course he thinks this is my hormones kicking in and I will just learn to love it.
I hate him right now.
That's all.

I'm Baaaack

I spend the last week working on the website for Wicked Muse. I had to learn, through trial and error what the heck I was doing.
But I think it came out pretty good. go look- http://www.wix.com/Jhendiah/Wicked-Muse-Productions
Now I'm working on the one for the Foundation for the Historic Arts. This one will be much easier, so I can probably have it done with 1/10 the frustration and aggrivation than the last one.
Now for the REALLY awesome news. Anastasia got into Pinellas Prep Academy!!!!! No more 6 am bus. No more dragging a miserable child out of bed to go to a school she hates! Yay!
Life is good.

I'm back!

Sorry to slack, but I was actually busting my tail working on the website. I wasted an entire DAY working on it and lost all my work. So the next day I made sure after every change I did a save. It takes longer but I don't have to start from scratch. It's almost finished and ready to go to GoDaddy for the big launch. Then I only have to do all the other freaking websites and I'm set.
I put a wish list on here. I realize it's completely full of expensive shit, but the camera will be first and foremost since the hubby acts like I'm asking for a kidney when I want to borrow his and it's quite difficult to put things up for sale with no pic. Go figure people want to actually SEE what they are buying. The nerve.
I've been sticking to my little fly baby stuff. And I have been spending ALOT of time answering all the RSVP's for the production company! It's taking off quickly now. And I'm all set to start booking. If anyone and I mean ANYONE can come up with a free indoor rehearsal space I will be eternally grateful. That's our current obstacle.
In general the more I do the better I feel. So I'm feeling pretty good about everything. I ordered Kiki's bday gifts, but they still haven't arrived, which sucks cuz todays her bday and Saturday is the meet and greet where I will be doing the cake deal for her, it would be nice to be able to give her the prezzies then, but I already told her what she's getting just in case. I was gonna surprise her, but I was getting nervous when the crap still hadn't arrived yesterday. so I sent her pics of it all.
I went online this morning to check out the deals Verizon has for their cell phones. I can get a GOOD phone FREE and split service with Shawn (the son in law/adopted child) for about 10 bucks more than I'm paying. They give you 1400 anytime minutes and 10 friends (I only talk to bob, kiki, diane and kevin usually) so the other calls are going to use up MAYBE 3-400 minutes. Shawn gets to pick 10 too. So we'd both have unlimited access for the same plan with better phones. I will wait till right before I have to pay my bill to do it.
ta ta for now, may come back later.
{{{{HUGS}}}} for Diane. Her blood pressure is off the charts and she is at the clinic to get meds. It's giving her migraines. So of course she can't do anything...like empty out mom's house. I can do alot of it with my truck, but she was renting a uhaul for me, and now she can't AGAIN. Lets all wish her better so she can get back to helping Lisa not slack.

Websites and coming home to a messy house

I went to Diane's house on Friday after stopping by the hubby's job to have the big airport fairwell because I was going off to war (WTF). I did a make your own fajita bar with chicken, steak and shrimp. Diane was all happy. I made her move her forks and knives over to the drawer next to the sink and dishwasher because who the hell keeps their utensils 20 feet away from where they get put away????? Any way the baby loves going there and she was thrilled. We had a nice night and went to bed SUPER early. So of course that means I was up at 5:30. Anastasia was grinding her teeth so bad it went straight through me and woke me up. Diane even commented on it when she woke up 4 hours later. Thank GOD she has the pugs because they are a fabulous host/hostess team. They're twin pugs. And I took them outside so they could do their business and I could smoke for AN HOUR. Then we went in to get a soda and the little bastard pooped on the floor right next to me. I asked him "Eddie, who does that? You can't go outside for an hour and then come in and poop on the floor!" Eddie looked at me like "Yeah I thought you were never going to bring me back in, I almost pooped out in the yard!" So I cleaned up the poop.
Then we went to Bob Evan's where a semi-retarded waitress took our order. She neglected to bring us any utensils to eat with. We had to wait. FYI- I've been a waitress, before you think I'm just my bitchy self about her mental capacity. It is not rocket science. You ask what they want to drink, bring the drinks back along with utensils. You take the food order. You bring back the food. You check back once or twice to make sure everything is okay. Maybe refill the drinks. You drop off the check and that's pretty much the entire process. Tops it's 7 things to remember. We were there for breakfast, quick painless. She sucked. I overtipped.
Then we went to uhaul and got the truck. Stopped at the house to get the dolly and the keys. Forgot the dolly, got the wrong key. Went BACK to the house and got the dolly and the keys and Bob. He called my son John to come help and we loaded all the stuff that was going to Dianes in the truck. Everything else we are going back on Wed. to get. The place STILL smells like Mom. Side note. When me Diane and John went to pick up the couch the back lifted up. Diane and I both said "Oooh maybe it comes off." John said "Nope" and punched it back into place. Bob took Diane and my place and they hoisted the beast onto the truck, then the rocker that matches it. You know what. Kristen's bf helped us unload the truck back at Diane's, BOTH the couch and chair come right apart for ease of moving. The kid's bf is too young to be arguing with us old chicks so we were able to dismantle the furniture. If he were all grown up, he would have done the same thing my son did. Cuz boys are dumb. We stayed at Di's till 10 that night cause Anastasia was having stomach issues. So I didn't get home till 11. Nothing else accomplished the whole weekend. We had to bring the truck back yesterday and I had to go buy all the baby's back to school stuff ($200 later)
Today I'm going to have to clean the house all afternoon. I came back to a total wreck of a house. And I'm working on the website for the Production company. (which needs to be added onto my ever growing list) So I'm going to do the website in between scrubbing and washing.
I may be back later depending on what happens this afternoon. We shall see!

Joann's Crafting for a Cause Contest!!!

As anyone who knows me knows, I started a 501c3 charity back in January. We are struggling to get it off the ground and it's going slowly. The Foundation for the Historic Arts was formed to build and provide scholarships for kids between ages 12-18, a Teen Center for the Fine and Performing Arts. It is going to be an afterschool and summer program. Currently there are no programs like it. All afterschool programs other than organized sports ends when a kid turns 12. Not every kid is an athlete! Kids need a safe environment where they can express themselves and showcase their talent.
If you want to help us with this, Joann's (my favorite store!) is having a contest! Please follow the link;
http://www.joann.com/joann/common/content_noleftnav.jsp?catName=craftForaCause&utm_source=Joann&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=cfcbnr&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=EML20100820-D&rId=EML20100820-D

and start crafting for the Foundation today!!!!

Slumber Party @ Diane's!

Yesterday was busy busy busy all day. I posted the meet and greet for the production company. (next Saturday @ 11:00) and went and closed out mom's bank account. The customer satisfaction stalker got me as soon as I sat down at the bank. She came over and shook my hand and I thought at first she was going to help me. Then she said she was doing surveys at the bank.
 Me:        "Sorry this isn't a good time for me."
 Stalker:  "It'll only take a minute!" (big stupid smile)
 Me:        "My mom passed away and I'm here to close out her accounts. Really not a good time."
Stalker:   "I understand completely! I'll try to make it quick and painless."
Me:        "I said this isn't a good time for me (now getting a little loud) I am NOT doing a survey!"
Stalker:   "Ma'am, I don't understand why your being difficult, we could have been half way through by now."
Me:       "Again. I am not taking a survey. This is not a good time. PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"
Stalker:  "You can't just answer a quick 10 question survey?"
Me:       "PLEASE! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Stalker:  "I'm going to go get you a manager."
Me:        "If you don't mind."
Stalker:  (speaking to manager 10 ft away from me loud enough for me to hear) "That Lady needs help, she 
              is very hostile you better ask her to leave."
Me:        "I will leave as soon as I close out my account!"
Manager: (ran over and escorted me into the office) "Is there a problem Ma'am?"
Me:        (now loud) "My mother passed away. I am here to close out her account. I do not want to take her
              freaking survey!"

On a happy note I don't ever have to go into that bank again...EVER!!!

I did my little fly baby stuff and then I had to run to my sister in-laws to pick something up for hubby. Had to go get his prescriptions and did all my running around yesterday. It's so good to have my truck back! I've been chained to the house for the last month since I didn't have enough money to pay my parking ticket (for parking in front of my own house) and my expired tag ticket (for driving my truck 4 days after my birthday) and for my license suspension (for not have the $200 to pay the two tickets) I couldn't renew my tags until this week. It's DONE. All of the above happened the same week that my mother came to live with us and I was working 10 hours a day 4 days a week, taking care of my mother because she didn't want a nurse and still had the baby's horse to take care of every day. The universe was working diligently toward my having a nervous breakdown.

As for my meet and greet next week I received over a dozen RSVP's within an hour of sending the invites. So I'm very optimistic on how things are going to go.

Please see my next post which is going to explain the contest that Joann's is having and how it can benefit our favorite charity! (Foundation for the Historic Arts!!!)

My inner child was playing with matches all night~

Ah, nothing like waking up in a pool of sweat. The heat part honestly doesn't bother me nearly as much as the freezing my butt off immediately afterward. I really wish my mother was here for my reverse run through puberty. Not that she was very good at handling me when I went into puberty the first time. And for anyone that ever does read this. NEVER divorce your spouse when your kid is turning 13. After having survived 6 kids dragging me through that time in their lives and as little help my hubby was with them. The one good thing we had going for us was the continuity of their home. They knew that when they got home from school there was mom and dad and we all ate dinner together. If Bob hadn't been so awful at the parenting thing I'm willing to bet they all would have turned out better. But had we separated back then, those kids would have chewed me up and spit me out. I still have to go through 1 more but Anastasia has her siblings that are all adults. So I think having them to go to when she thinks Bob and I are destroying her life may cushion her little journey.
I am going to revise my list at the beginning of every week to see how far I've gotten. Just knowing I was going to come on here and talk about what I did made me want to do more. I really didn't want to log on and write "Goofed off and played games on facebook."
As for my list and what I did yesterday~
I-
Registered the car ($81 bucks!!! OMG)
Sorted through a box of paperwork and junk
Spent an hour tackling the craft room (very very teeny dent)
Went back to the beginning on the fly lady list;
                      I had started that about 3 or 4 years ago and when everything went to hell with those blood   
                      leeches that stole the festival that went out the window.
Soooo yep I polished my sink to a sparkle. It's all pretty. And it really does make a difference in how I feel when I walk into the kitchen and we don't have a nasty pile of dishes waiting for me.
Today I am going to ~
Continue on my Fly Lady list.
Work through another spot in the craft room
Put all the sellable crafts in one spot to photograph tonight
Design the Flyers for the press kits
Create files for all that paperwork from last night so that can be handled

I'm taking Anastasia to spend Friday night at my oldest friend Diane (we've been friends for 38 years!!!) and she is super organized and has her poop in a pile. So I'm hoping she can help me get my act together. I also have to pack for that. Her daughter is an artist so I'll bring something with me for the girls to work on together. Then Saturday we are going to clean out mom's house. I have to sell the 2 houses. That will give me a nice little cushion to get the production company and charity off the ground too.

Here we go~

So this is it. I'm getting off the butt and doing it. And if I have to write down everything I do and put it out there for the world to see, then I won't put it off. I'm starting off today by putting the lists of everything I need to get done on here. In my defense some of the stuff will take more than a day to do, but maybe I can get the encouragement from watching my own progress. Who knows. Now this is just off the top of my head and I'll probably have to come back and add to all of these lists a hundred times but it's a starting point and with so many things all swimming random it all seems too overwhelming. I'm spending Friday night at Dianes with the baby and she is really good at all the organization stuff so I am going to have her look this over and she's pretty good at reminding me of 10 things I forgot, so maybe by Sunday I can have a really functional list for each thing. (I wonder if I'm leaving an entire list off???) Kiki I know you're out there. A little help?
The Lists~
~ Home ~
Finish the fire table
Get the Explorer registered
Go through the craft room
Become a full fledged Fly Baby (http://flylady.com/ )
Make stuff out of the millions of things started
Get pics of my finished stuff up on Etsy
Clean out Mom's House
Go through the closet and dresser!!!

~ The Charity ~
Get the webpage up and running!!!
Get the donation button from the CDP
Plan out 1st fund raiser and a launch

~ The Teen Center ~
Contact Jacque about the partnership and the building

~The Production Company~
Make the press kits
Send out the press kits
Have photo shoot done
Get CD's done
Arrange a meet and greet for the groups
Get the bookings all marked on calender and set up!!!
Auditions
Find rehearsal space to use until we get the Teen Center
Make a rehearsal schedule

~Katie's Leather Biz~
Go through the gigantic pile of leather in the garage
Start making stuff to sell at some shows.