07-07-06 Friday Up early and so is Jessalynn. I accidently woke her at 7:30 am opening her window. Jessalynn is playing with her toys behind me. I do love having her and Jess living with us. I think Jess is happier but it is so hard to tell with her. Sometimes she looked happy with Patrick ~ but I guess not too often. He is fixing up his house now like it is going to upset Jess make her jealous somehow that he is doing it now that she is gone. Seems it would just piss her off more to me but maybe that is his goal. Whatever, he surely has his work cut out for him!!! Fixing that house makes fixing this one look like a piece of cake. Mikey is gone to Texas. The girls are in Minnesota. I suppose it really is best for them since this is what always happens to them. I just hate that it is this way and that Mikey gets away with it. No one else out here can fight him for those girls time. But at least I have the access that I do to my other grandchildren. Jeanette will let us have Jenise almost whenever we want now and soon they will be letting Robbie go, too, but he is still too new to them. He is fattening up nicely and looking less fragile and more like a ’bouncing baby’. I suppose it will be a while before Jeremy gets up/ Nothing much to do here with my messed up back, although it is slowly getting better. 07-06-06 Thursday JESS GOT A PART IN A COMMERCIAL!!!!!!!!!! I took her for an interview a few days ago and they called today and said that she got the part. Her first time on TV and her first speaking part!!!!! It’s for Baxter Chevrolet. My little girl is on her way!!! On the down side, I don’t know if this is going to help her bulimia to succeed at this weight. She is so extremely thin. 07-04-06 Fourth of July We took Jessalynn to Harrahs fireworks show tonight. It was a bit of a gruesome walk but we had a very good place to watch from and it was the best show I’ve seen. We came home and Patrick came over and we shot off the fireworks he bought. I felt emotional during the show, wishing Mom and Herbert were with me watching. Hoping they were there. I’m so unsure of what I believe happens to us When we die. Sometimes I have this huge faith in the afterlife and then sometimes I fell I am deluding myself along with the rest of a world that cannot face the end of existence. I so desperately want there to be an afterlife and I know the rest of the world does, too, but then why is ther so little tangible proof that there is an afterlife. All those who claim to talk to ’the other side’ are considered fakes or delusional. What is the barrier? 07-03-06 Monday A new month already. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to pay bills on time. I was really hoping to get more of my settlement this month. The phone bill is pretty high from the collect calls. And then rent starts again here Aug. 15th. We have to start babysitting ASAP in case there is no more settlement money. I suspect that I am going to be screwed out of most of the rest of it like they say I get 10,000 less because I had SSI during the interim and I didn’t but what can I say against the government and win? I do plan to try to find out at least how they figure that but I don’t have a lot of hope of winning. THE INCREDIBLE GREAT NEWS: JESS HAS OFFICIALLY MOVED IN. J J :-) Friday evening Jeremy went and got Jessica’s bed and her personal belongings and I went and got Jess with him a little later. Patrick was there and pretty upset but I think this is going to be better for him, too, in the long run whether they stay apart or not. I feel wonderful having her under the same roof again. I have slept every night terrified that I would wake to a call that Patrick had killed Jess in a jealous rage. Things w ere just too intense for too long in that house. Jessalynn is very happy with the change. She still sees Daddy whenever he can and can talk to him on the phone whenever she wants. So far she is still sleeping in the room next to ours upstairs but she is talking about wanting to move downstairs with Mommy. I talked to Jami today and she sounded really good. I think she has less than thirty days left in there. I just hope I get some money before she gets out or very soon after so I can help her with the things she needs done quickly like paying on her fines and getting her some dental work done. I know she plans to start working right away and take care of herself but I would like to be in a position to help and to take care of her if she is too ill to work. I can’t walk hardly at all. The pain is across my lower back and in both hips and knees and it is terrible. Even with all the medication I take at full strength, I still can barely move. Sometimes I can’t move at all. Can’t lift my legs without help. This really blows. Not just the pain but even more missing doing all the things I want to be able to do and feeling like time is just slipping by while I lay here. 06-24-06 Saturday Evening Emailed Lindsey today. Stayed home all day. Jeremy is gone to get me cigarettes. Patrick picked Jessalynn up for one of her cousin’s birthday parties and just dropped her back off here. She came home with a bag of party favors and seems to have had a good time. J Jami called. 38 days!!!!!!! She said it is like taking a band-aid off real slow. I can hardly believe she is finally going to get out! It seems like she has been in there forever. I just want to hug her and tell her everything is going to be OK. She says she wants us to take up all of her visits on Monday so she doesn’t have to see anyone else right now. OH I didn’t write that I finally got the shoes I ordered for my birthday last May. I’m in love with the pair of Ryka Maryjanes. I also bought a pair of Nike Discovery Walkers but am exchanging them for another pair of Ryka’s in white. They are the most comfortable shoe I have ever owned and they aren’t even a wide width ~ Ryka shoes are designed to be wider at the front and narrower at the back. Pretty cool!!! Finally. I HAVE SHOES I LOVE!!!!!!!!! 06-23-06 Friday 2am Slept a LOT yesterday afternoon and evening, maybe this will be the turning =point where I start to get better. We went and paid the MUD bill today and took Jess to work. Not much else. Jess stopped by and we gave her a smoothie and her vitamins. She says she is moving in next week. We’ll see. Jami called today and said that Jim had gone to visit her so she got her visits for the week and Jim put ten bucks on her books. 4 pm. Mikey brought us a black leather couch today. His parents gave him living room furniture so we got his old couch, which is a very nice couch. J I fixed him a strawberry smoothie he liked. Jami called while Mike was here. I think I might be getting some extra money on this next month’s check. I hope so. I don’t know how I’m going to pay everything next month with the delay deposit I already have out. We have a seventy dollar electric bill and still have to pay another hundred on our MUD deposit. Now we need a TV for the living room. Have I mentioned lately how much I love our new home?? Or that I am happy? I don’t seem to fall into any of the depression categories now and I used to fit everyone of them. I realize I will go through bad times again, but I don’t think life will get as extreme as it has been again. Of course, you never know. I thought my mom would have everything all together for her last years and her affairs were never in worse xhape than the years before her death. Ever since she blew her capitol because Dow Corning said they were settling with her for 2 million for her implants and then she never got anything. Maybe Mike is stil fighting for it. It doesn’t matter to me because it was meant for HER. I hate the poverty she died in and wish I could redo that part of her last years. Money was always seemed to be too important to her and then when she had none she adapted so thoroughly I could hardly believe it. If only If only If only ~ but I don’t go there too much. I am happy with the good byes we had with Mom. 06-20-06 Still feeling pretty rough, I don’t know if it’s the illness or the medication ~ likely both. It is so terribly hot in my car because not only does the AC not work but I can’t turn off the heater and sometimes my window won’t roll down. Jess called this morning and said that Patrick had hit his head at work and was home acting iratic with a gash in the top of his head. We went over there and he was acting addled but didn’t want to go to the hospital ~ said his boss wouldn’t pay! Came home and went back there at 3:30 to take Jess to see Dr. Tibbles. I didn’t go in with her but believe that something is going to be done to help her with the bulimia. Jami called today and said that Kirk had visited her and that he is going to have to do a little time in jil and then probation for a posession charge. We are having money trouble. I have already taken out a 300 delay deposit and today we returned a lot of things that we bought and don’t have to have right now like the ablounger and some new bedding I bought and the jig saw. I got another of those screwy letters from SSI about my back pay that makes no sense. I might be getting some more money and I might not. I hope so! And soon, although I think we can set up pretty good with doing some babysitting to catch up and them to keep going. 06-19-06 Monday Another week. Jami has five weeks left!!!!!!!! Wonderful and terrifying. Mostly wonderful right now. It seems like such a short time left but I bet the time crawls for Jami in there. I know I need to get busy getting a room ready for her. We went to Mikey’s for Joey’s birthday party with his parents and a sister and her husband. We took matching Strawberry Shortcake dresses for all of the girls, we had Jessalynn and Jenise with us, and they looked really cute. His family was pleasant but his Mom still can drive me nutty with her cattiness dressed up as social boo boos. The worst thing that I heard yesterday is that Mikey is going out of town again, only for two weeks this time, and he is still taking the girls to Minnesota instead of leaving them with us. IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF. Had to get that out. But there is nothing I can do about it so I keep my mouth shut. I think they are all counting on Jami going back to drugs so they can easily have the girls. I just wish I was sure they are wrong! I wish I had heard nothing from Jami except how she misses her girls and wants to be a mother, and those things are there, but they still aren’t dominant. Drugs are still dominant even if it is resisting them. What ARE the odds that she can stay clean? What will make being a mom more important now when it hasn’t been in the past ever? I can get to thinking like that and then I don’t even want to know the girls because I know they will be more out of my reach than Lindsey is. If I planned to live a long time like my mom I would say I can wait until they grow up and come to me but I don’t think that is an option for me. I saw Dr. Blair today and he started me on eloquent and diflucan for two weeks for UTI. 06-12-06 Monday Checking out using a different chair at this desk. I wish I had the one at Patrick’s but am hesitant to take it even though it is mine since he has been using it for the last three years. We just got back from getting Jessalynn. She begs to come here whenever she isn’t here. J They don’t have much food there since we moved out. Patrick made the comment that he is broke right now because he’s been supporting a family of four for a year but, not to take away from what he did do, but he didn’t exactly support us and they all ate better than they had before we came and definitely since we moved out. Jessi used to call me in Texas telling me there was nothing to eat in the house, one of the things I said I would change when we came and we did whatever it took, there was food there. Patrick is a little delusional about what we did and didn’t cost him. And that comes before we even think about how much time we’ve spent taking care of Jessalynn but that isn’t mentioned in it because that was a pleasure. J And now there is no door on the bathroom at Patrick’s. He knocks it down regularly, another thing we used to take care of, but it has been down for two days now and maybe won’t go up again. 06-10-06 Saturday Jeanette and Rob are supposed to be coming over tonight. I’m a little worried that they will cancel but we’ll see. It will be fun showing our home again if they do come and getting to see the kids. I had a pleasant birthday with Jeremy. He did the queen for a day thing and let me lay in bed while he did a Honey Do list. The evening ended up messed up a little bit because Jess and Patrick got into a hairy fight. We ended up taking Jessalynn home with us to get her out of the line of fire and Patrick said that he’d call the police if Jess was still there the next day but she is still there and they seem happy with it somehow. I visited Jami on Friday after giving Jim the whole week to show up to visit her after giving him more than enough money to get his ID so he could visit her. Schmuck. Ah, I didn’t write that we went to Nett’s about a week ago and Rob presented the idea to help him buy recording wquipment @ $1800 and get paid back and some of any profit. Of course I agreed but have been really worried about our financial situation ever since. Our bank is overdrawn and we don’t have enough money to get through the month without borrowing, which I will have to do, but we’ve spent almost a hundred dollars on getting Jess a new phone and her bill caught up this week. Nett and Rob have ended up getting a lot of my money but I don’t really mind ~ they have and will in the future be the ones who help me when I need it. My biggest worry right now is a two hundred dollar MUD gas deposit I still owe. I paid the $300. Electric deposit last week, and the rest of them when we moved in. I’ve been having some pretty harsh panic attacks worrying about what all we’ve got ourselves into here but I calm myself with how much we’ve been through and that we can always survive no matter what happens to us financially. But I really hope we can hang onto this house for at least a year. 07-07-06 Friday Up early and so is Jessalynn. I accidently woke her at 7:30 am opening her window. Jessalynn is playing with her toys behind me. I do love having her and Jess living with us. I think Jess is happier but it is so hard to tell with her. Sometimes she looked happy with Patrick ~ but I guess not too often. He is fixing up his house now like it is going to upset Jess make her jealous somehow that he is doing it now that she is gone. Seems it would just piss her off more to me but maybe that is his goal. Whatever, he surely has his work cut out for him!!! Fixing that house makes fixing this one look like a piece of cake. Mikey is gone to Texas. The girls are in Minnesota. I suppose it really is best for them since this is what always happens to them. I just hate that it is this way and that Mikey gets away with it. No one else out here can fight him for those girls time. But at least I have the access that I do to my other grandchildren. Jeanette will let us have Jenise almost whenever we want now and soon they will be letting Robbie go, too, but he is still too new to them. He is fattening up nicely and looking less fragile and more like a ’bouncing baby’. I suppose it will be a while before Jeremy gets up/ Nothing much to do here with my messed up back, although it is slowly getting better. 07-06-06 Thursday JESS GOT A PART IN A COMMERCIAL!!!!!!!!!! I took her for an interview a few days ago and they called today and said that she got the part. Her first time on TV and her first speaking part!!!!! It’s for Baxter Chevrolet. My little girl is on her way!!! On the down side, I don’t know if this is going to help her bulimia to succeed at this weight. She is so extremely thin. 07-04-06 Fourth of July We took Jessalynn to Harrahs fireworks show tonight. It was a bit of a gruesome walk but we had a very good place to watch from and it was the best show I’ve seen. We came home and Patrick came over and we shot off the fireworks he bought. I felt emotional during the show, wishing Mom and Herbert were with me watching. Hoping they were there. I’m so unsure of what I believe happens to us When we die. Sometimes I have this huge faith in the afterlife and then sometimes I fell I am deluding myself along with the rest of a world that cannot face the end of existence. I so desperately want there to be an afterlife and I know the rest of the world does, too, but then why is ther so little tangible proof that there is an afterlife. All those who claim to talk to ’the other side’ are considered fakes or delusional. What is the barrier? 07-03-06 Monday A new month already. I’m terrified that I won’t be able to pay bills on time. I was really hoping to get more of my settlement this month. The phone bill is pretty high from the collect calls. And then rent starts again here Aug. 15th. We have to start babysitting ASAP in case there is no more settlement money. I suspect that I am going to be screwed out of most of the rest of it like they say I get 10,000 less because I had SSI during the interim and I didn’t but what can I say against the government and win? I do plan to try to find out at least how they figure that but I don’t have a lot of hope of winning. THE INCREDIBLE GREAT NEWS: JESS HAS OFFICIALLY MOVED IN. J J :-) Friday evening Jeremy went and got Jessica’s bed and her personal belongings and I went and got Jess with him a little later. Patrick was there and pretty upset but I think this is going to be better for him, too, in the long run whether they stay apart or not. I feel wonderful having her under the same roof again. I have slept every night terrified that I would wake to a call that Patrick had killed Jess in a jealous rage. Things w ere just too intense for too long in that house. Jessalynn is very happy with the change. She still sees Daddy whenever he can and can talk to him on the phone whenever she wants. So far she is still sleeping in the room next to ours upstairs but she is talking about wanting to move downstairs with Mommy. I talked to Jami today and she sounded really good. I think she has less than thirty days left in there. I just hope I get some money before she gets out or very soon after so I can help her with the things she needs done quickly like paying on her fines and getting her some dental work done. I know she plans to start working right away and take care of herself but I would like to be in a position to help and to take care of her if she is too ill to work. I can’t walk hardly at all. The pain is across my lower back and in both hips and knees and it is terrible. Even with all the medication I take at full strength, I still can barely move. Sometimes I can’t move at all. Can’t lift my legs without help. This really blows. Not just the pain but even more missing doing all the things I want to be able to do and feeling like time is just slipping by while I lay here. 06-24-06 Saturday Evening Emailed Lindsey today. Stayed home all day. Jeremy is gone to get me cigarettes. Patrick picked Jessalynn up for one of her cousin’s birthday parties and just dropped her back off here. She came home with a bag of party favors and seems to have had a good time. J Jami called. 38 days!!!!!!! She said it is like taking a band-aid off real slow. I can hardly believe she is finally going to get out! It seems like she has been in there forever. I just want to hug her and tell her everything is going to be OK. She says she wants us to take up all of her visits on Monday so she doesn’t have to see anyone else right now. OH I didn’t write that I finally got the shoes I ordered for my birthday last May. I’m in love with the pair of Ryka Maryjanes. I also bought a pair of Nike Discovery Walkers but am exchanging them for another pair of Ryka’s in white. They are the most comfortable shoe I have ever owned and they aren’t even a wide width ~ Ryka shoes are designed to be wider at the front and narrower at the back. Pretty cool!!! Finally. I HAVE SHOES I LOVE!!!!!!!!! 06-23-06 Friday 2am Slept a LOT yesterday afternoon and evening, maybe this will be the turning =point where I start to get better. We went and paid the MUD bill today and took Jess to work. Not much else. Jess stopped by and we gave her a smoothie and her vitamins. She says she is moving in next week. We’ll see. Jami called today and said that Jim had gone to visit her so she got her visits for the week and Jim put ten bucks on her books. 4 pm. Mikey brought us a black leather couch today. His parents gave him living room furniture so we got his old couch, which is a very nice couch. J I fixed him a strawberry smoothie he liked. Jami called while Mike was here. I think I might be getting some extra money on this next month’s check. I hope so. I don’t know how I’m going to pay everything next month with the delay deposit I already have out. We have a seventy dollar electric bill and still have to pay another hundred on our MUD deposit. Now we need a TV for the living room. Have I mentioned lately how much I love our new home?? Or that I am happy? I don’t seem to fall into any of the depression categories now and I used to fit everyone of them. I realize I will go through bad times again, but I don’t think life will get as extreme as it has been again. Of course, you never know. I thought my mom would have everything all together for her last years and her affairs were never in worse xhape than the years before her death. Ever since she blew her capitol because Dow Corning said they were settling with her for 2 million for her implants and then she never got anything. Maybe Mike is stil fighting for it. It doesn’t matter to me because it was meant for HER. I hate the poverty she died in and wish I could redo that part of her last years. Money was always seemed to be too important to her and then when she had none she adapted so thoroughly I could hardly believe it. If only If only If only ~ but I don’t go there too much. I am happy with the good byes we had with Mom. 06-20-06 Still feeling pretty rough, I don’t know if it’s the illness or the medication ~ likely both. It is so terribly hot in my car because not only does the AC not work but I can’t turn off the heater and sometimes my window won’t roll down. Jess called this morning and said that Patrick had hit his head at work and was home acting iratic with a gash in the top of his head. We went over there and he was acting addled but didn’t want to go to the hospital ~ said his boss wouldn’t pay! Came home and went back there at 3:30 to take Jess to see Dr. Tibbles. I didn’t go in with her but believe that something is going to be done to help her with the bulimia. Jami called today and said that Kirk had visited her and that he is going to have to do a little time in jil and then probation for a posession charge. We are having money trouble. I have already taken out a 300 delay deposit and today we returned a lot of things that we bought and don’t have to have right now like the ablounger and some new bedding I bought and the jig saw. I got another of those screwy letters from SSI about my back pay that makes no sense. I might be getting some more money and I might not. I hope so! And soon, although I think we can set up pretty good with doing some babysitting to catch up and them to keep going. 06-19-06 Monday Another week. Jami has five weeks left!!!!!!!! Wonderful and terrifying. Mostly wonderful right now. It seems like such a short time left but I bet the time crawls for Jami in there. I know I need to get busy getting a room ready for her. We went to Mikey’s for Joey’s birthday party with his parents and a sister and her husband. We took matching Strawberry Shortcake dresses for all of the girls, we had Jessalynn and Jenise with us, and they looked really cute. His family was pleasant but his Mom still can drive me nutty with her cattiness dressed up as social boo boos. The worst thing that I heard yesterday is that Mikey is going out of town again, only for two weeks this time, and he is still taking the girls to Minnesota instead of leaving them with us. IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF. Had to get that out. But there is nothing I can do about it so I keep my mouth shut. I think they are all counting on Jami going back to drugs so they can easily have the girls. I just wish I was sure they are wrong! I wish I had heard nothing from Jami except how she misses her girls and wants to be a mother, and those things are there, but they still aren’t dominant. Drugs are still dominant even if it is resisting them. What ARE the odds that she can stay clean? What will make being a mom more important now when it hasn’t been in the past ever? I can get to thinking like that and then I don’t even want to know the girls because I know they will be more out of my reach than Lindsey is. If I planned to live a long time like my mom I would say I can wait until they grow up and come to me but I don’t think that is an option for me. I saw Dr. Blair today and he started me on eloquent and diflucan for two weeks for UTI. 06-12-06 Monday Checking out using a different chair at this desk. I wish I had the one at Patrick’s but am hesitant to take it even though it is mine since he has been using it for the last three years. We just got back from getting Jessalynn. She begs to come here whenever she isn’t here. J They don’t have much food there since we moved out. Patrick made the comment that he is broke right now because he’s been supporting a family of four for a year but, not to take away from what he did do, but he didn’t exactly support us and they all ate better than they had before we came and definitely since we moved out. Jessi used to call me in Texas telling me there was nothing to eat in the house, one of the things I said I would change when we came and we did whatever it took, there was food there. Patrick is a little delusional about what we did and didn’t cost him. And that comes before we even think about how much time we’ve spent taking care of Jessalynn but that isn’t mentioned in it because that was a pleasure. J And now there is no door on the bathroom at Patrick’s. He knocks it down regularly, another thing we used to take care of, but it has been down for two days now and maybe won’t go up again. 06-10-06 Saturday Jeanette and Rob are supposed to be coming over tonight. I’m a little worried that they will cancel but we’ll see. It will be fun showing our home again if they do come and getting to see the kids. I had a pleasant birthday with Jeremy. He did the queen for a day thing and let me lay in bed while he did a Honey Do list. The evening ended up messed up a little bit because Jess and Patrick got into a hairy fight. We ended up taking Jessalynn home with us to get her out of the line of fire and Patrick said that he’d call the police if Jess was still there the next day but she is still there and they seem happy with it somehow. I visited Jami on Friday after giving Jim the whole week to show up to visit her after giving him more than enough money to get his ID so he could visit her. Schmuck. Ah, I didn’t write that we went to Nett’s about a week ago and Rob presented the idea to help him buy recording wquipment @ $1800 and get paid back and some of any profit. Of course I agreed but have been really worried about our financial situation ever since. Our bank is overdrawn and we don’t have enough money to get through the month without borrowing, which I will have to do, but we’ve spent almost a hundred dollars on getting Jess a new phone and her bill caught up this week. Nett and Rob have ended up getting a lot of my money but I don’t really mind ~ they have and will in the future be the ones who help me when I need it. My biggest worry right now is a two hundred dollar MUD gas deposit I still owe. I paid the $300. Electric deposit last week, and the rest of them when we moved in. I’ve been having some pretty harsh panic attacks worrying about what all we’ve got ourselves into here but I calm myself with how much we’ve been through and that we can always survive no matter what happens to us financially. But I really hope we can hang onto this house for at least a year. 06-03-06 Saturday We are waiting for Mikey and the girls to come visit. They will be our first guests in our new home. J Jami called a little while ago. She sounded good but wistful. Jess was hired to be in a music video last night. It was fun and exciting for her. 06-01-06 Thursday Jeanette gave birth last night to Robert James Belk. J J I still haven’t seen him. They wouldn’t let us in because it was after visiting hours when we got there because the car wouldn’t start for a couple of hours. Jess is staying with Patrick but is still moving her things here that she doesn’t use often. Jeanette thinks that Jess just wanted a place that she could go if she wanted but it sure didn’t sound that way for most of the last year. I’m not pushing her either way. I would be happy if she were happy with Patrick. I would also be happy to have her live with me but if I had an outcome to choose I would choose that things work out with her and Patrick, mostly because they are Jessalynn’s parents and I know they have some kind of love and devotion towards each other that has kept them together for so long. I like Patrick as a whole. He still has a lot of growing up to do and a lot of control he needs to take over his adult ADHD problems, but he loves Jess and Jessalynn and has a lot of good personal qualities. He makes some really bad decisions financially and sometimes socially but really does have the proverbial good heart. If Jess doesn’t actually move in here there will just be more room for the rest of us to spread out. It has been a fun adventure to spread out into more than one room already. I’m having a good time setting up the house, getting things out of storage boxes for the first time in years and using them and displaying them properly. We used our new Magic Bullet last night to make Salsa. Today I ordered two pairs of shoes from Lady Foot locker. 05-29-06 Rob’s birthday Sunday Stayed home in bed watching TV most of the day except to take Jess to work and drop off Jessalynn with Patrick. It was a ‘day off’ and it felt pretty good. I do just love our new home and sharing it together. I am afraid of the future a little, trying to make it long term like I mentioned yesterday, but will just have to do the best I can. Hopefully we will find a way to make money. We have spent a LOT lately and it has felt wonderful but we have mostly bought things we really needed or at least have wanted for a long time. I wish we could buy this house and will be checking into it but my credit rating, thank you again clown shit, makes me think it won’t happen unless we can pay cash for a place or get an owner to finance. I love this house for us. It feels just the right size on the floor we live on with all that house under us in the basement. That’s another thing, I don’t understand why Jess won’t say one way or another if she wants to move in here and acts unsure after all of this time of saying she is trapped with Patrick and even that she was only with him because she had no place else to go or that it was because we lived there, too, and she was worried that we would have no place if she left Patrick. I also wonder about all of her friends that she has been telling how terrible Patrick is and how badly she wants out and now she’s not taking the out. Jami tells me that Jess really wants to move and that Jess wants us to just move her but then Pat tells me that Jess says I am forcing her to move in with us. She has always had trouble voicing her wishes but this is getting ridiculous and frighteningly nuts. 05-28=06 Saturday Jami called here today. J Pretty wonderful to be talking to her from our new home! Everything is pretty awesome right now. I know there will come a time when life isn’t this awesome again. The settlement money will all be paid and spent, but the idea is to be set up for life by then. I try not to lose sight of that end because our long term survival depends on it. I would like to buy this house but if we can’t then whatever we can afford so we at least are never homeless again. This really feels like home. 05-26-06 Thursday No baby yet. Nett went to the hospital to be induced last night but they ran out of room and sent her home. Bummer! We are setting up the house. Our Magic Bullet came in the mail yesterday so I set up the kitchen. We got some Correl, too. 05-24-06 Wednesday Well. Jeanette called this morning and said that I got another $5,970. Deposited in her account!! More fun! Also, today is the big day ~ Jeanette is going to be induced at 6 pm, in about thirty minutes. Pretty exciting stuff!! I have a head full of hair color right now getting ready for the arrival of my new grandson. The house is incredible. Did I write that yesterday? I love it here sooo much! And it is soo cool that Jeremy and I have all of this after so long with nothing and then less than nothing. I can’t get my new high speed internet to work ~ will have to call the tech center after I rinse my hair while I am waiting for the call to go to the hospital or whatever. Not sure what we’ll do with Jessalynn. I’d better go rinse. 05-24-06 Ten days since I wrote. Ten days of painting, cleaning and moving. This home is so awesome!!! Jess still hasn’t moved in but I think she will by the end of the week although it’s a little strange it is taking her this long. I’m supposed to have DSL but can’t get it to hook up right so I have to call tech support or get Mikey over here. We have been staying here for about four nights and it just gets better and better. Jessalynn has been staying with us and sleeps in the room next to us in her own bed here. J We’ve come across some good deals and some free things to fix up the house. I found curtains at a free building and office supply giveaway downtown behind Retro. And some carpet for Jess’s apartment in the basement she is setting up. This is all so much fun it’s easy to forget how miserable we have been. We’re about done with the cleaning and painting and are starting to set up the house. It is mind boggling to think we can put our things all through a house instead crammed into one room. We haven’t really had more than a room since we met. OUR FIRST HOME TOGETHER!!!!! We found out that I won’t be getting the 27000 in a lump sum but in six month increments so we’ll have to figure out how to make that work for us. I can’t keep any of it for more than six months because then it is counted as a resource that kicks me out of my SSI. Weird. Whatever. To start with, we definitely want to stay here for at least a year after fixing up and falling in love with this house. Jax has been here most of the week and he is doing fine in the back yard. 05-14-06 Sunday Feel a little better but haven’t been able to take the Bactrum. We got the house today!!! I talked to the woman and told her I would pay four months in advance to make up for having bad credit and she jumped at it and said she will meet us with the key tomorrow at two. J WHAT A RELIEF except it hasn’t really sunk in that we are finally going to have a home. The place needs a little TLC but we don’t care about that. We have the money and time to invest in it right now. TWO BATHROOMS. 05-13-06 Just waking at 10 am. It still hasn’t sunk in that I have money to move and fix my car and stuff. WE CAN HAVE A HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very sick, nauseated all day. 05-12-06 8-11 at the dentist getting a big filling. Fell hard leaving in the parking lot. Jeanette called around noon and said that I had received 7,000 of my settlement!!! We all went to Walmart to celebrate and shop and them Jeremy nd I went to Romona’s to eat, not the best, don’t do that again. 05-11-06 Thursday Have a Dr appt today @ 2:30. Started Bactrum. Took Jess tanning and to work. Slept… 05-10-06 Visited Jami. We had a good visit. Left her $20. 9 pm Jeanette called from work and said her pains were three minutes apart and she and Rob are in the4ir way to the hospital now. We’re waiting for them to check her and if it’s really labor we’ll go up to the hospital. False alarm, Nett was sent home. Maybe not yet but soon. 05-09-06 Slept poorly and got up at 7 am to go to the doctor at 9 am. Got there ten minutes early and then waited until 10:30 to see him for ten minutes. Didn't take any meds before leaving home so it was a painful visit waiting in the hard little chairs or pacing the tiny examining room. Dr. Blair accidentally cut too deeply into the bump on my thumb and embarrassed himself making me bleed quite badly. I knew it would happen but he had no clue what he was dealing with! That wasn't very encouraging. I think I will ask for referrals to specialists for questions like what is that thing on my thumb. I didn't stop to visit Jami. Her soap opera was on by the time I left the doctor and I know I can visit her during a dead time later today or tomorrow. I sent her a fat letter while I was out. :-) When I tried to fill my prescriptions the pharmacist told me that Medicaid was refusing to pay for my medicine and that I had to find out who I had for Medicare. When I got home I started making calls, first to a Penny at HHS, then, surprise, my worker, answered her phone and gave me a national number where I talked to a HHS worker named Sondra, after sitting on hold for 30 minutes, and sat on hold with her for another 20 minutes while she tried to contact the insurance company their records I was supposed to have starting June first, which wasn't going to cover my hundreds of dollars of medicine I need to fill for May. Someone finally answered at Pacific Care Saver Plan @ 1-800-797-9794, who said they had absolutely no record of me having their insurance at all. Sondra said she will call me back so I am waiting for her call. If it comes too late. I'll stay home today and see Jami and take Jeremy to the dentist tomorrow. And maybe pick up his medicines and NFC at Douglas County. I have six prescriptions I need to fill in the next few days... 05-08-06 Had a scare today when my brakes went out taking Jeanette to the doctor for her 38 week doctor appointment. I was terrified it would be the master cylinder but it was a twenty dolar hose replacement. Good thing because I "loaned" Patrick sixty dollars if it is possible to "loan someone you owe money. I suppose when you consider payment options given, legally, you can. It's the idea I question. 05-06-06 Missed my appt with Blair by 45 min. My bad ~ got the time wrong. Had to take all internet off this PC ~ peoplepc rely screwed this thig up but I hated Netzero. Maybe it will work better if I load it with a disc. Patrick got home last night while Jess was out and Jess got home after her left so it went OK but they are both here right now so no telling what will happen. Don't wanna get out again but really need to start looking at houses more seriously. Ended up going to Mikey's and making him home made chicken noodle soup and hanging out with the kids. Michelle came to me and wanted me to hold her hand and walk today. :-) Gave Jojo and Jessalynn manicures and pedicures and left the remover for Mikey. AND there is a chance that the Aptiva will be fixed this week!!! Mikey found and ordered a new modem for it. :-) There is a chance that this won't fix it, but I have BIG hopes. Jami called while we were there. She is very depressed trying to do this last three months. It's pretty sad talking to her. Gotta give her more money ~ she told me some of the prices for things in there and it's not cheap. $2 for a pad of writing paper! They need to be able to order from Bout a Buck! I'm working on a letter to Jami to help her to do the remaining three months of her time. Trying to look at the positive, and there's only one, but it's a big one. At least we know that she will be getting out in August and that THAT DAY will be a great day, if not a great week, month, year, years to come. That she will be able to see her children and all of us and just be out of Pottawattamie County Jail!! I've also given in for now that she is going to allow Kirk to visit although I really hate her keeping in touch with him at all. It will be up to her if she goes that way when she gets out. I just hope she realizes that it might be impossible for her to ever be around drugs without doing them. Jeremy can't stand to be around weed without doing it. He went nuts when he knew I had some I was using because I ran out of pain meds and he had to stay clean for a piss test that he never passed and he had the weed from me within a week. This is one of those days that Jeremy is on my nerves and he says it's all me but I think he is in a mood himself. He can go on and on at Jessalynn sometimes until I'm glad I'm not a kid around him! And gives me those superior looks when I try to say anything. Jeremy can say a thousand words with a look and enjoys it because he then denies even thinking anything to cause the look. I guess you'd have to see it. I think it has a lot to do with him being out of weed since last night ~ it's hittling him today that his little run of smoking is over again. I'm not buying any more this month. It is amazing to me how much time Jessalynn wants to spend with me. She is sitting beside me right now and will sit by me for hours while I type or lay with me watching TV that doesn't realy interest her ust to be together. We also do a LOT of things together. I find myself planning for her in everything that I do. Jessica was a little jealous of the relationship at first but has come to see it as a good thing. Jessalynn usually goes to her mom for a while whenever Mommy gets home from work or when she comes in from going out, but she comes right back. Jesslyn does sleep with Mommy, but will be with us until she is falling asleep almost every night. I love having her near. 05-05-06 Just called the jail and Jami has no visits left. I waited till Friday on purpose to see if she would let Kirk in. Now the standoff begins. No letters or anything until I her he is out of the picture. It has been very peaceful without Patrick here. Even more so for Jess. But it begins again tonight, Jess hopes to be out when he gets back, maybe us, too, and WE GOTTA MOVE. 05-04-06 Got food stamps today. :-) We went grocery shopping @ Super Saver and stocked up on a few things. Took Jess to work, didn't really do anything else today. Left Mikey a message and he tried to call back while we were out shopping so I know he's alive. Plan to visit Jami tomorrow unless she has let someone else in by then. Peaceful house with Pat out of town. Everyone seems more relaxed ~ gotta get moved out. 05-03-06 Fell asleep early with a bad headache and woke at two am and have been up since. Left here around six am to do the day's errands, first to go to walmart to get Jessalynn the Barbie I promised her last night but fell asleep. Also got her a voltage box for her VSmile game and dog food and some little things and some soda. Snagged some false eyelashes, eyeliner and makeup brushes. :-0 Then I went to the post office and mailed Lindsey her Tinkerbell socks and her kitty necklace with a letter, got stamps, and went to the library to print out a letter to Jami. Then I went and bought back the delay deposit check we had out ~ that felt good! Just have to get Jami and Barbara's letters mailed and do some phone work today and then watch idol tonight. Feeling more hopeful today. I looked at some places in the paper for rent and feel fairly confident I'll at least be able to move Jessica out of here if not all of us. Need to go to Landmark management and check on the slum houses for rent. Got home and woke Jeremy, who's disappointed I went without him but he could have never left when I did. He was pretty sound asleep and I didn't want to risk getting sick later with so may little things to get done. Patrick was going to take Jessalynn to his grandfather's funeral in Illinois but turned back and ended up leaving Jessalynn here and left mad that Jess didn't go with him but maybe this will be good for them too to have a few days far apart. 05-02-06 I took Jeanette for her 37 week check up and she is dialated one centimeter. :-) Maybe we'll get him a little early. It was a real nice visit with Jeanette. We left nici with Michelle, sho is warming up to me finally and being very sweet in spite of the differences between her mom and me. The day started bdly. I called SSI 800 number today to check on my settlement and it is in the payment dept. but they said it still could be a long time before isee anything. I cried and cried, I have no clue how to get out of here. Even thinking about living in Jeanette's basement full of wolf spiders or a tent. I feel so stupid for not planning for this better and saving everything I could to get us out of here. Mostly I feel bad that ZI can't rescue Jess from all of this and end this war with her and Patrick. Every time they are both i the house the tension is thick s a brick. I've been really hard on Jeremy and feel bad about that, too, but some of it needed to be said. He really does bitch and nag a LOT and is driving me totally nutso, not a good thing to do. It makes me fel like I'm all alone fighting the whole world to survive. And discussing things with him is so hard because he doesn't remember some things for real and then pretends he doesn't remember things or outright lies to get out of discussing anything. 05-01-06 Have no clue how to do all that needs done this month, starting with towing Jess's car to Nett's, giving Pat $100., Jess $50., and move and survive. Visited Jami this morning but the visit got cut short because Jeremy got caught waving through the door to the visitting room. :-( We were having a good visit. I don't blame Jeremy ~ I've done it while he was in there before but he's just not nearly as slick as he thinks he is. I've been up since 5 am, grumpy, have to be at the dentist at 1 pm, in 33 minutes. Jeremy really drives me crazy with the shoplifting thing. Wants to do it when we have eight hundred dollars. Back from the dentist. Kept falling asleep while getting a tooth filled!!!! SLEEPY. Gotta take Jess to work in a minute. She has suspicious bruises and cuts on her left arm. The cuts look self inflicted. I even asked that but she is just evasive. I'm so worried about her! This mess with Pat is to much stress. She just wants to be a mom and do her thing and I can't get her out of here to do that. 04-30-06 Woke to Pat and Jess fighting. Never a good awakening. We've got to get out of here ASAP and forget about anything else this month. I think we can afford to rent a place but then we aren't going to have any money for anything ense like gas. We'll have Jeremy's food stamps, and the little Jess makes, but Jess brings in less than us right now. Going to have to count on Fate to smile on us. That has worked well in the past a bunch of times, but the times it doesn't really suck!!! Just found out from Nett that my monthly money is all in, $863.50. We'll try to find a place to move to with it. 04-28-06 Another cloudy day. I'm over being angry at Jami. Just very, very, sad. Haven't felt this sad about her since she went in there. Had one of those weird sleep paralysis/seizure things last night ~ a really bad one. Came out of it too scared to go to the bathroom alone because during it I couldn't remember where I was or even where the door to the room was and thought I was hearing a banging sound but it waas in my head. Partly 'shocks' from trying to go off Efffexor. Hurt my back very badly again last night. Either carrying two gallons of gas for Patrick or just doing a lot more. I cooked for the first time in ages and did a few loads of laundry. Whatever, it was the worst the pain there has been. Just not the greatest day yesterday. Later We took Jessalynn to Nett's for Michelle to babysit and went to Mikey's and had a nice visit and left him my Aptiva and Patrick's PC. Talked to Jami while we were there and she explained why she let Kirk visit ~ she says he had just gotten out after spending the night in jail and she wanted to know why BUT that doesn't pan because they aren't supposed to be able to visit anyone in jail within at least three months of getting out the last I knew. WHATEVER, we had a pretty good talk and I'm going to go visit her Monday. I had sent her a pic of herself right before she went in and it horrified her. I didn't expect that big of a reaction but maybe it's a good thing. We left Mikey's around 11pm and I dropped Jeremy off at Pizza Shoppe to see Rob's band, Jeanette is there, too, and I came home and I am alone in the house for the first time. Weird and kind of neat. 04-27-06 A cloudy day. Stayed up late and slept late. Going to visit Jami again and then later msybe to Mikey's to drop off Michelle's doll and Narnia. Not quite as much pain as yesterday. We went and looked at a house on Myrtle and it was a huge dive. A hovel. Just got back from trying to visit Jami. She had already let Kirk in earlier today after swearing to me that she wouldn't let him in anymore especially if I could cover her money needs, which I borrowed the money from Nett to do Wednesday, plus spent the gas for the trips, and she klet that asshole in anyway. I've had it!! She has sat in there for nine months and still can't break the tie to her drug dealer while whining that she still loves and wants Mikey. She is still Gia ~ if her lipsa are moving she is lying. I have decided that I am not visitting or taking her calls or anything until she makes a real choice. For all we know they could be denying her good time because they can see that she still sees her drug dealer bouyfriend. And he is such a sleaze. I'm pissed but not talking through my ass - I mean it. Jess suggested cutting her off tough love style a year ago and I should have listened but I never reallyu thought it would be this hard for her to make the right choice after she had a chance to be straight and sitting in jail for this long to look at what she has done not only to herself but to her children and everyone who cares about her. I am through until she choses for real and I don't even know how she can prove she has chosen. 04-26-06 Wedsnesday 9 am. Wednesday and I've done 2 of 11 things planned for the week... Maybe should get on it as the list grows. Yesterday Jeremy and ivisitted Jami for the first time since she found out that she didn't get her good time, so the visit was sadder than usual. Then when we left, we discovered that I had left the keys locked in the car and the cops were no help so we had to break a little back window. To top it off it was rainy and cold all day. Didn't do much else but take Jess shoppiong @ Walmart yesterday. And Jeremy got the trash out to the curb for the first time in three weeks!! Jami is broke and says Mikey's phone won't take her calls anymore, I wonder if the two are related. I emailed Mikey to ask if she still had any child support coming in and to please let me know whenever she didn't so I could arrange to pick up the slack. I borrowed $10 from Nett that I'm taking to Jami in a little bit so she can order tonight. Overall, yesterday sucked, although Jeremy andI had pleasant enough evening, playing Tekken and watching Idol and then Freaky Friday again. Not much else to do with gas $2.80 a gallon and very little money.... Unfrugginbelievable. Yesterday when we were trying to break a windos, we first tried the little triangle one on the driver'sd side, but, because of the curve in it, couldn't break it even though we tried Jeremy'x elbow, a rick that broke, a billy cluyb that broke, and then gave up and broke the little triangle one in back. Then today when we went out to the car we saw that the little driver's side one had finally shatterred, I think bwecause it almost froze last night and then the sun was warm on it today, whatever, it is shatterred. We put clear tape all over the inside of it to stop it from falling apart for a while hopefully. Little pieces of glass were falling out whenever I hit a bump until we taped it. Trip to drop off $10 for Jami uneventful. We stopped on the way and looked at a house on Myrtle St that I had bid 10,000 on ~ gonna lower that bid!!! It is a dilapidated shack. Fell asleep shortly after we got home at 3 pm and woke up at 8 to watch Pickler go home on Idol. Jeremy is cooking supper ~ I woke in worse pain than usual but feel rested for the first time in days/. 04-24-06 Monday Should be making some kind of list of things that need done this week. Feeling a little more 'normal'.Plan to see Jami today but don't have much money for gas. Or anything. We sure can tear through a hundred dollars. But buying the Playstation and Tekken was a worthwhile investment. I think Jeremy enjoys it even more than me, and I really wanted it ever since we got here. 1. Apply for loan to buy house and fix cars. 2. Call SSI about settlement again. 3. Catch up laundry 4. Fix steam clener. 5. Find part for vaccuum. 6. Mail Lindsey package. 7. Call Kevin about house on Myrtle. 8. Check with Vickie Adams on req. forms. 9. Make appt w/Blair O refill. 10. Price trany for Jess car. 11. Move Jess car to Nett's. 04-23-06 Seem to be sleeping my way through this... 04-22-06 Feeling much better so the antibiotics must be the right one. :-) Jeremy and I went and got a Playstation from Gamers today for $16. We got Tekken 3 two days ago but Pat's Playstation quit working after playing it once. Jeremy and I are pretty well matched at Tekken so it's really fun. I don't have to let him win like I did Clown Shoes. We got a futon loveseat on the way home that someone had set out at the curb. It needs a couple of screws but it will be perfect for our place ~ will go well with the black leather couch Mikey has for us. Now if we can just find a house!!!! 04-21-06 Woke late for my Dr appt but they still saw me ~ good thing. I guess I'm pretty sick. Kidney/bladder infection. Dr.Blair wanted to put me in the hospital but I wanted to come home. Taking Cypro and he gave me pyridium and oxycodone for the pain. I started crying when he came in and I tried to tell him how I felt. Turned out I've had a fever and didn't realize it. Confined to bed under Jeremy's supervision. Sad news yesterday. Jami won't get out until August 2nd because she got turned down for good time. I realize that maybe she's not ready to be out on the streets yet but wish they would send her to a lock down drug treatment place instead of just leave her sitting in jail where she is learning nothing except to hate the system. 04-20-06 I just had a rude awaking ~ came a milisecond from wetting the bed ~ did wet my pajamas ~ and it hurt like hell when I went to the bathroom. It's 7am, I guess I'm up untl the doctor's office opens. We were up until 2am watching Narnia, pretty cool movie! but my legs hurt so badly through it I could barely pay attention. I don't know why my legs hurt so much worse when I have bladder problems... 04-19-06 A beautiful, sunny, windy, day ~ my favorite kind. :-) About to take Jess tanning and get my free lumiere facial. A very painful day, mostly my back. And always my legs. Nothing the doctor gives me seems to help them. Exercise no longer makes any difference unless I do too much and make it worse. Just part of my life, but still plenty of good to balance it out. Went and did a delay deposit for $150 and gave Jess $50. Came home to her and Pat fighting. I'll be soooooooo glad when we can move out of here!!!! This is such a terrible atmosphere for everyone but especially for Jessalynn. It drives me nuts that Pat doesn't seem to think about how any of this effects her. Nor has any clue that all he does is make things worse. I don't think it is even possible for him and Jess to have a normal conversation any more. Just yelling and arguing. Beating a dead horse. We are imprisoned almost as much as Jami. The gas is shut off and there's a chance Pat will leave it off to teach everyone a lesson. I give him what money I can, part of the reason I had to borrow money today, and have promised him a thou when I get my settlement but I sure don't feel like giving it to him with the way he makes everyone as miserable as he is. I should be paid a thou for putting up with this life 04-18-06 Just got back from visitting Jami. It is much better being able to visit her now but so sad too because I want her back!! Yea, I'm afraid for her to get out, too, afraid she'll go back to Kirk and drugs, but I stil want her out to have a chance. They aren't going to teack her anything else sitting in there longer. Now they're just pissing her off. Me too. GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!04-17-06 Moved the new PC down on the floor where the Aptiva died. Hope the spot isn't cursed but I don't have much choice where to use it. Jeremy hd it set up at Jess's vanity but that was totally uncomfortable no matter how I sat. Pretty pea eful today. Jess is out with Deana and Jessalynn is gone to Grandma Linda's. I suppose Pat is working. Still a little frosty over us taking Jlynn to Mikey's for Easter. I bet he didn't bother to tell his family that we offered to delay and sent Jlynn over there first and then go to Mikey's. Pat was already too mad to take us up on it when we offered. I know his mom thinks we are just freeloading here because she doesn't see any of the money we've given Pat nor the food and of course has no idea how much (all) of the cleaning that we do or babysitting, not that I ever mind babysitting. 15 Apr 2006 - Good Friday Keeping this came in handy today when I had to find out the date I bought the Aptiva PC. :-) Jeremy, Jessalynn, and I have been dying Easter eggs. Typing with multi-colored fingers. It is a great memory to be building with Jessalynn but makes me feel that big sad lump inside that misses Herbert. Funny how when I remember things like dying Easter eggs from childhood, all I remember is Herbert and me. Maybe Mike was just too old forthese things by the time my memory starts. My friend Winnie gave me a two year old PC a couple of days ago that is awesome. The Aptiva broke down the day I brought the new PC home, but I'm taking it to Mikey's and hopefully he can fix it. The Aptiva turned out to be great for Jessalynn with a lot of really cool preschool games. The one Winnie gave me will be MINE. She is my only friend in Omaha and a very good one. We plan to spend Easter Sunday with Mikey. Dying two dozen+ eggs for the hunt at his house. Jess is coming, too, so it will be a fun day for all of us. :-) 2 Apr 2006 - A nice day We had a nice day. :-) We went to see a guy I have been talking to about buying a PC from him. We bought one and he threw in a troubled laptop with it that I REALLY hope to fix. Then we took Jessalynn to CC's pizza and had a really nice meal with her. She ate well and was absolutely charming. Shortly after we got back to the house Jess called for a ride to WalMart and home, so we loaded back up. Got Jeremy a CD player for in the car. Some little doo dads. Home now. Jeremy's waiting on Cody. I'm off to play. 1 Apr 2006 - Reunion I finally paid to join Reunion.com today. I've been wanting to ever since I saw that Beverly Wright was looking for me, and then today I saw that Julie Miller was also looking, and I happened to have the money (although maybe not to spare right now!!) oh and I don't regret it at all. They were both online and responded immediately, and the thrill was worth a hundred times what I paid. :-) I sent them my website, so now they just have to tell ne what THEY have been up to for the last 20 years. I think it means even more to me since I have no family contact other than through my children. Nothing from my past. Until now. :-) :-) :-) 30 Mar 2006 - Visitors I finally got to se Winnie, Kunashe, and her new baby yesterday afternoon. :-) It had been at least two years, and only a quick visit then and another the year before. Kunashe has forgotten me this time. :( but I will remind and rebond with her. Winnie's baby is 6 weeks old, by a new husband, who I haven't met yet, but he, too, is from Zimbabwe. Winnie and I are the same together, like mother daughter or sisters. Mother daughter when discussing how to care for babies, sisters in our joys and sorrows. Hope to see her again this week end. Cheers! 27 Mar 2006 - OOpps Accidently erased my last reader's comment while trying to check who left it. I suspect my dear friend, Beaver. It felt like his writing!! Whatever, whoever, I'M NEVER EATING SPICY CHINESE AGAIN!!!!! Still out of it and it's getting dark. One of those days I will choose not to remember at all someday... 26 Mar 2006 - Writings Everywhere I suppose eventually I will have to quit completely some of the places I write on the web with the websites and blogs now. It's a beautiful Sunday. I've only had a couple of hours of sleep, partly because I ws gettig up and checking on things closing on Ebay, but alwo because I was sick to mystomach, the good old projectile vomitting kind. Jess had a high fever yesterdau morning. I don't know if we're about to pass a nasty bug or ill by coincidence, butI did eat delivery chineses food last night 24 Mar 2006 - Lists Just sitting here waking up (late). Waiting for the pain meds to hit and to be able to think and get around and do the things on my list for the day. I somehow thought these lists would dissappear once I'd raised my girls and especially if I wss unable to work. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I suppose the lists mean responsibility, especially if I actually do the things on them. Funny thing, only about a fourth of my lists are for me. I've got a good one for me today. Going to see my good friend from Zimbabwe, Winnie, today for the first time in two years!! I also have to take Jeremy for a piss test to prove he's off the ganja and something else... it'll come to me. OH, get plates for my car and cancel the appt to have the tranny checked, as I have overslept. And borrow a buttload of money thatI have promised to pay back doubled to Jess. Doesn't seem like much of a list but for me it will be exhausting. I've added a herniated disc to my ailments, nothing like a little spice. Visitted Mikey and Jojo last night with Jeremy and Jlynn. Had a nice short visit. Came home wiped out... See ya 10 Mar 2006 - Kid Rock Concert Last night Jessi gave me two front row tickets to KID ROCK, Jeremy's absolute favorite. It was as much fun watching him as watching the concert, and I believe it was his good karma that got us the tickets, because he has been trying so very hard to better himself lately. :-) I don't remember ever seeing Jeremy sooo happy!!!! 2 Mar 2006 - Back again So. I've opted to avoid going back into therapy for now. My medicaid started with my disability, and I can no longer see my therapist, Barb, at the county clinic, and I'm not ready to go through the stress of finding a new one who is a human, not an alien studying drugs for thecpharmaceutical companies. I have a primary care physician, Dr. B. who is prescribing antidepressants etc. as well as taking care of my medical needs, so I'm "fine" for now. But, I don't know how long I will have my new doctor. He is currently out on bond or something, charged with "unethical practices", ie. he prescribes Oxycontin for some of his patients. I don't take it. it makes me really sick. In fact, he had to spend two hours with me on my second visit to convince me that I would be better off to take SOMETHING narcotic for pain and get out of bed and start to live again. I decided to trust him, and so far it has given me back very much of my life. My bed sores are healing, I go shopping and even play with my grandchildren some, starting to do some of the housework again, and never feel the least bit "high". I do believe that a lot of the town junkies take advantage of him and his attitude about the fight to a pain free life, and that is likely what is bringing him down. For me, he is the most thorough physician I haveever seen, he listens and then talks to me instead of at me. I'm still living with Jess but am promised that I will get my settlement within the month for real, and then Iwill buy a house for Jeremy and me. And for Jami when she gets out, Jess ifshe needs or wants to live with me, whoever, but it will be my own home and I can hardly stand the waiting. Four years without a home!!! Sadly, Jami is still in jail and might be there another three months. She is taking it very well, I am very proud of her and miss her terribly. Jeanette and Jess and their men and I have a pretty sweet relationship. I start getting that heaven on earth feeling again lately. Jeanette and Rob were married in November and are expectin a little boy in three months. My first grandson. :) Of my granddaughters, I , of course, spend the most time with Jessalynn since I live here, and she is a real joy. Just makes my heart burst with light. Mikey had to go overseas for three months and just got back about a week ago. His girls went to Minnesota with his parents while he was gone, so I'll have to get to know them all over again. It is wonderful having Mikey back. I missedthe girls a lot, but mostly I missed and worried about him. He and Jami are divorced, but we still feel like family with him and I hope it stays that way. Oh, and I finally have a car, just got it last Saturday, still don't have it legal, but it is the ticket to freedom for Jeremy, Jess, and me. It was $500., easily worth $1,000, and needs about $200. of work done to be in tip top shape. But I think it's beautiful, present quirks and all. :) Jeremy and I have been having some adjustment problems. I guess that's what you'd call it. He doesn't understand at all that I want to spend some time, not a lot, but once in a while, alone with my daughters. I try to tell him that it isn't about him, I would want this and so would they no matter who Iwas with, but he just feels hurt and left out. I feel badly because he doesn't really know anyone else in Omaha, but he didn't really have any friends in Texas either, and he refuses the option he has for something to do with himself and his time. He is registered to attend the Community Alliance Day Program, which has daily classes on everything from self improvement to arts and drama, with rec time. He went for a few weeks, didn't seem to get much out of the classes offered, but mostly came home talking about shooting pool during his "free time" between classes. He was starting to make a few friends, I was enjoying a little free space to where I was glad to see him when he got home, but he gradually stopped going. And that's the brick wall my pity for his boredom and constant need for me to entertain him comes up. He stopped going when it snowed a little even though I bought him snow boots, but there hasn't been snow for weeks, it's 70 degrees these days, (global warming from all ofthe people smoking crack), and he still sits here day after day. Mostly laying in bed. he isn't very aware of the passing of time, like he thinks he does house work most of the time, but actually it's more like once or twice a week. He does take very good care of me on the days when I am bedridden, I don't often have to worry about being ignored. Just smothered. I went to get cigarettes before he got up yesterday and stopped at Jeanette's to pick up some of my money, and he was furious and waiting on the porch when I got home. Jess was outraged, I've told her how it is but I guess she had to see it. Jeremy and I haven't gotten along for a couple of weeks trying to work these things out but he just refuses to actually listen to anything that I say. I won't kick him to the curb no matter what, but he is going to have to change some of his ideas to live in peace with me. I know he is learning disabled, but he CAN learn what he really wants to. He could learn the proper way to talk to children, but instead, if I mention that he is saying wrong things, like calling then names, he will defend himself vehemently and block me out and do the same thing a few minutes later. He is extrememl negetive, has been since I met him, has always complained about everything and everyone, and if I suggest something like to try to say something positive about someone each day, he doesn't even say he will try. Instead he launches into the long story of how he knows no better because he has had such a terrible life, etcc, etc, etc. Wow. I didn't realize all that was coming out! Houston, we have a problem. I do love being with Nett and Jess, although, sadly, they don't seem to enjoy each other's company much these days, but maybe they just need to make the transition from girls togethr to women together. I hope all three of my girls will someday be close to each other. For now I am thrilled with their closeness to me. It's been rough at times, the five of us living under one roof, but I cherish the little times with Jess very, very, much. We turn to each other more and more for help and comfort, and can laugh together till we've got tears in our eyes. Even though she's not huggy, if I go to her room and am feeling really down, we sit close and talk until we are laughing again and the sun comes back out. Then there is my incredible pen pal, Beaver. We have been emailing for months, and he is my best friend outside of family, my confidant, my anchor, and my inspiration to do something positive with my life, and to try to be a positive light in his life, too. And Jessalynn needs me right now. More later. I think I just found my new therapist... See ya! 7 Oct 2005 - a;l;;s;jglgdlgdl A restless night. Jessalynn comes to our door ever night between 3 & 5 lately. I'm usually asleep and she goes back to her room but I was up last night and let her cone in and she is stil up in there. It is odd for her to be up ALL night, it is 6 am, but she is very sensative to moods in the house and the house has very bad vibes lately. Jess openly acts like she hates me now, I don't even get that tight little smile, Nothing. She is the only one of my daughters who still has no clue how much I love her. But she's odd and has taken many of my gestures to get closer to her as attacks, the biggest example being joining that stupid gym. She is an eternal dreamy little girl, waiting to be discovered by a big modelling agent and then swept away by prince charming. How do you break that without breaking her spirit? She is so smart about some things and so blind to others. Pat says that when they go out, she always has a terrible time, but she seems miserable just sitting at home, too. She loves Jessalynn very, very, much and is lost without her, but can't bring herself to do the things that she knows are best for Jessalynn. I really think she is suffering from a mental illness, clinical depression or bipolar, that is the only thing that makes sense with the little I know about her. And she can be so different to different people. Sometimes when people are talking about herI wonder if they can be talking about MY Jessica. All of the poople on crack top and some where she works cxll her a serious Pill Hesd. She tells everone where she works how abusive Patrick is but doesn't sem to ralize how that comes back on her. One bitch was telling jeanette about working with Jess in the past and saying everyone thought she was a terrible mom to stay with such an asshole who endangered her daughter mentally if not physically. The bitch shut up when she realized Nett was about to flatten her, but it is frightening that Jess doesn't see these kinds of consequences. I understand badmouthing Pat at work to let off steam, but NO ONE believes a woman is trapped with an abusive man these days with all of the programs to help. Women can only be volunteers. And Pat, as I know him, isn't as bad as she says. She tells me and tells me that there is a bad side to him thatI don't see, but living here 7 months twice now, I've sen a lot and he talks to me more than Jess about his problems with being controling and his temper. I see that he can be abusive, I also can't see any other man, not even Mikey, staying so loyal to a woman who won't even have any kind of sex with him. (and no, I shouldn't know that and it wouldn't concern me except that she could very well lose Pat over it and I just don't believe that's what she wants for her or Jessalynn) And he is Loyal, I can't swear to faithful, no one knows that but him, but he is fiercely loyal. No one can say a bad word about Jess, he gets defensive for her if he just thinks someone is going to criticize her. He flat out loves her. She once told me she was nagry that Jami had her own dream life and threw it away, but doesn't see that she has Many people's dream life herself and throws it away daily. Men who have their own home, work hard, make good money, adore their daughter and wife, and are intelligent and self motivated don't grow on trees. But she doesn't see it. I understand she has some libido problems an maybe some more form Oran and maybe even her father, if Jeanette and Jami are correct. But, that doesn't stop everything. I have almost zero libido and the interstitial cystitis makes sex very painful most of the time, but I am aware that Jeremy has basic needs as well as the need to jsut feel that closeness, so I do all that I can to keep him happy, from cuddling and smooching to at least giving him a view to shoot at. Pat says the doctor reccommended a medicine for her libido, and antidepressant, one that I don't care much for, but I will try to get something for her if she will take it but I'm not so sure it's just a hormonal libido thing. Is she still punishing Pat??? Maybe. I believe she is still punishing me for things I did and didn't do as well as for her father's absence. Since Steve is wonderful in her eyes I must have been terrible for him to have left like he did. It couldn't be that he's a sick puppy himself. She's the only one who doesn't seem to remember how he never had to do anything around the huse, got the biggest and best serving at supper at night and went and sat in his room in his robe the rest of the night with me fetching drinks. She doesn'tremember that last year before the breakdown, how he never went to work but stayed at home hanging out with me 24/7 or the two years before that when He came home and took me to lunch almost every day whetherI was hungry or not, just for my company. Or how I begged her to offer to go out in the field with him to re-inspire him to do his job before he got fired. Lack of love on either side was never the problem. Jeanette clearly remembers how nutty he got when he started the Prozac, and those crazy meds mixed with his own craziness led to his crazy walk out. I understand that it is easier for him to blame me than all of that, and I gave him plenty of material by having a breakdown after the fifth time he took off, but I expected all ofthe girls to realize the truth by now. Jess still believes in her heart that I am an evil person, so nothing I do of say can fall in a good light with her. Instead, she, like her father, blame me for their issues, can't even see the things I try to do good, and will always be surprised that only crazy people or people who don't know me agree with them. Which makes it almost impossible for me to help Jess. She looked so sad sometimes yesterday that I just wanted to grab her and hug her but she is the most unhuggable person I have ever known. Maybe I do know her and won't admit that the person I see is really my daughter. I have believed my Jessica was and introvert, kindhearted, creative and modest. I hear that she is mean, wild, very flirty, and loves pills, but still creative. The only way I can believe what I hear is to believe she is bipolar, and i also think there could be jealousy because she is so beautiful. I know I thought my Grandma Kiser was a saintly woman and was shattered to hear that she was very, very far from that and I'm sure thatshe was bipolar. Shelly is, the jury is stil out on Jami because of the drug abuse, and my present doctors are ruling it out for me because I don't have the wild, giddy side, just an angry one that is pretty well under control now, thank God and therapy! Barb and I laughed over a group of black women stopping me leaving the DC clinic and saying "How did you just stand there and take that shit from that nurse? We would have flattened that little bitch for talking like that!" and, yea, it had crossd my mind, but I didn't. Instead I did the "normal" thing and went to the main office and filed a complaint. Barb says I've passed my anger management. The saddest part of getting my SSI is that I will lose her and Dr.Hannigan because they are only for the indigent. That was quite a blow. Almost time for Pat to get up. Gotta get out of here. 25 Sep 2005 - Sunday morning Just waking up. It will be another day of nothing. Like waiting for my life to begin. Other lives are going on all around me. It seems like mine went on hold when we came here to Omaha, and will start again when we get an income! The stock didn't double like Mike told Jeanette- surprise- like he's ever told the truth - it went down, but I should get disability within two months. Limbo until then. 22 Sep 2005 - Sleepy Day Not getting much done today except sleep so far. 17 Sep 2005 - Fibromyalgia Today I was hoping to get a prescription filled at the Douglas County Clinic, written by a specialist at Creighton University Clinic, My"Proof" that Fibromyalgia exists. I belong to Douglas County Primary Health Care, under the care of their doctors who don't believe that Fibromyalgia really exists. I call the Douglas County Pharmacy first, to make sure that that they carried the medication, Tramanol, and I am assured that they do. Next I call the Doughas County Clinic and ask how I can get a pprescription written by an outside specialist filled. I did forget to mention that I had not been referred from there to a Rheumatology Specialistand that the county doctors had already refused to refer me to a Rheumatologist because I had an ailment that neither of the doctors available to me at Douglas County believed in. They refuse to believe that I could reqire Tramadol for pain, which I am told, could could seriously, if I could tolerate it, make my life better. I oddly assumed that a primary care Douglas County physician would honor the word of one of his fellow superiors within their own field, a Rheumatology Specialists, out or respect if nothing else. Especially a Douglas County Clinic physician. It certainly isn't about any unpaid clinic time because they will continue to refuse to write me a Tramadol prescription, even if I schedule a third appointment there to ask for the medication. Even if they have proof from a Rheumatology Specialist that it would be of benefit for me, they will still never, ever, give me Tramadol for Fibromyalgia. And they don't even tell you anything about things that will help you with Fibromyalgia, because, if you ask Dr. Macey and Dr. Jeff what they think about Fibromyalgia, they will tell you that, althought they understand that you might really be in pain, they consider Fibromyalgia to be composed of such a vague, melandering, nonsensicle, group of ailments that it is not worth their time to refer a Fibromyalgia claimant to a Rheumatologist. That "Fibromyalgia" is just the catch word for "They hurt and we're not sure why". They say, Remeber we "Believe" you feel pain, but the jury is still out on what causes your pain, and the symptoms are so "unclear" that we just won't, in good couscience, refer you to a Rheumatology Specialist, or take the word of any Rheumatologist that you don't get referred to by us, for an ailment they call "Fibromyalgia". For all we know, Fibromyalgia could just be your imagination working overtime against you. Talk about feeling invisible in the world. Maybe it is because also I am admittedly diagonsed with Depression, and that could be the cause of the pain I believe to be Fibromyalgia. And maybe bacause I try to make being ill look as pubicly acceptable aestetically as I can, trying to not appear ill or in pain, physical or mental, and keep in the best shape that I can with things like walking, biking, and doing Yoga. Things Dr. Kenik seemed pleased I was already doing to help myself. Granted, I can't spend a lot of time doing any one of those things but I do them because they make me feel better, and sometimes because I have to, like walking. I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia by several doctors, including two Rheumatology specialists, one at Nebraska Medical Center, then follow up by one of their clinics who honored their diagnosis and I was prescribed Soma for Fibromyalgia pain, and once at a Creighton University Clinic, where Dr. Kenik recently prescribed exercise, step up the Yoga to daily, do something a little more areobic regulary to increase circulation, and he prescribed a regiment of Tramadol for pain management. I looked up pages of Fibrmyalgia information on the internet and, by the way, found no discrepencies with anything Dr. Kenik, or his medicad partner, spoke to me about nor in all that I found on the Internet. Only in what the doctors at Douglas County Clinic were telling me. That even if Fibromyalgia exists, it does not require any pain medicine, even if it's not a narcotic pain reliever. Tramadol might just be a little bit bit stronger and more effective than over the counter medications. I don't know because I can't yet get my prescription filled for it by the Douglas County Clinical General Assistance program. You don't have to get far from the clinic to find another group of specialist who also believe in Fibromyalgia, just across the hall at the Douglas County Psychiactric Clinic. At least one of their staff actually even has Fibromyalgia, and they all take the pain of Fibromyalgia very seriously and try to include pain relief in any medication they prescribe. They prescribed Cymbalta for me, 90 mg. a day, for Severe Depression and chronic pain, but their prescriptions have to be written only for medications that are listed as needed by by Psychiatric patients psychiatric evaluation, even though depression is often the cause of Pain. Cymbalta, unfortunately, has not reduced my pain. I will be able to fill my prescription. I will either be accepted for help from an Online prescription help program at www.pparxne.org, or I will come up with the money through family. I am lucky to know about how to find help. I called the Salvation Army to start with and was referred to that website for help. I have family and friends who will help me if I ask. What happens to those who don't? Do they just go home and live in pain that could be alieved without narcotics but is unavailable to them? Keep the bill for seeing that specialist in the same file they store the unfilled prescription? Doesn't this sound like a way to force a certain group of people to not receive help so the County doesn't have to pay for people with Fibromyalgia's pain relief bills? I don't know. It really seems more like the physicians at Douglas County Clinic have taken a power stand against Fibromyalgia sufferers. Even the nurse who delivered Dr. Jeff's message that he wouldn't honor Dr. Kenek's opinion was cold and brittle like I was a junkie trying to get heroine. She opened her light colored eyes wide, so the whites wee shining around them in a manic glow, and stood with her feet apart like a man about to get in a bar room brawl, clenched hands in the pockets of her jacket, and told me that he said no, and no, and no way and go away. It set the noises buzzing in my head and caused me to make a quick calculation of the punishment I would receive for kicking her bug-eyed butt and then finding Dr. Jeff for a swift kick in the butt, whatever I could get away with before someone or ones tackled me to the groung. This image flashed in a couple of blinks, and I moderated it to a level short of making damaging threats by simply wishing Dr. Jeff a raging case of Fibromyalgia, and I left the clinic. I just hope they don't believe in God either so they can burn in hell. Did I say that outloud? I was actually trembling with outrage. I had waited five days already to have the prescription filled at the county pharmacy after getting instructions over the phone to bring the prescription in and let the doctor OK it to fill it. I had my last SSI hearing the day before and was preparing for it that week, mostly by stressing out about it, and Jerremy had a clinic appointment on Friday already scheduled and I could grin and bear it a few more days. I don't walk, bike, or take the city bus alone if I can help it because I know I am easily overpowered due to my condition. And I can't run very far. And with human experiences like mine at Douglas County Clinic, I just like to be guarded from those around me. They say that isolation from society is part of being depressed. I think it's part of admitting to ourselves that we live in a pretty messed up world. I did file a grievance at Douglas County General Assistance against the Primary Health Care Clinic before I left. I haven't given up. Even once I manage to get this prescription filled, I will press to have it refilled as long as I qualify for County Assistance. Will I continue using Douglas County Clinic once I start receiving disability benefits and Medicaid? Would anyone in the free world with out of control Fibromyalgia pain? Would you? 27 Aug 2005 - fairly pleasant day Not too shabby. Feeling a little better although still spending most of the time in bed. A little less pain today. Good humor prevails in the household taht is very refreshing. Jessalynn is such a joy. She is so uncomplicated compared to Lindsey at this age, but Lindsey had much, much more to deal with. Jessalynn can make me laugh on the daarkkest days and is a pure delight on a good day like today. Vey much like her mom when this age. Mikey called and said that Jami called and said that they wouldn't give her the crd I sent because it was glued - I should have thought - but at least they told her about it. I ache to hear her voice. 24 Aug 2005 - Wednesday Saw Dr. Massey yesterday. What a joke. Condescending prick. But I gor antibiotics for my lungs and should at least feel a little better. No word from Jami. Jessi and I talked a little last night. She thinks Jeremy and I don't like her. I told her I like her very much but that none of us really understand her. Then she said that Jeremy doesn't like her and I tried to talk to her about how he feels here but don't think I got too far with that. I wish I could fix it all but don't know how. Jess and Jeremy clash because they both come off as rude when they don't mean to. And theh ther is Pat who we all rather tip toe around so we live in a pretty intense situation. Jeremy seems to be getting worse instead of better under psych care and meds, or maybe it's just our living situation, but he is miserable and I feel the sorriest for him. Jeanette seems to be the only one who realizes how alienated he feels here. Jami was his closest friend besides me and she is in jail now so he just has me. And Mikey, but Mikey is in Bellevue and so busy being a single dad we don't get to se or talk to him much. I should talk to Jess more. One thing I have figured out about Jeremy, of just found the words for, is that he doesn't recognize boundaries. He doesn't know right from wrong in polite society. Yesterday he grabbed the CD player I was using and accidently turned it off and when I got pissed he thought it was because it went off and I told him no, it was that he shouldn't have just reached over and grabbed it to se if it was working right. He should have asked me first before invading my space. I don't think he really got it but that is what made me replay in my head all the similar situations whre he offends someone and then gets mad because he was only tring to help. It also explains the problems I have had with making him understand not to come in the bathroom with me or listen on the phone with me or follow me all over the house. now, that last one is more than just not understanding boundaries, I know. If I were a shrink I might suspect he never learned to self sooth as a child and needs constant assurance from others and doesn't know at all how to amuse himself on his own. I remember how I used to enjoy teaching him things and feel bad that lately I just get annoyed that I have to. Barb says I am way overloaded and just can't do all of the things I try to but I just feel incompetent that I can't. I came here to assure Jess that I love and admire her an look how that is turning out! But I did make Jami understand those things since I've been here. Maybe I am just spread too thin. Jim has been a great help with making me feel like I'm doing some things well. Maybe I just need to get over this infection and then start looking at all of this again... 19 Aug 2005 - Melinda & Adrianna funeral I got up late with a headache and Kirk called while I was getting dressed and told me that Jami was in Pott Co jail. She was caught because she went into Drug Town and they charged her with trespassing and was taken in for her warrant there. Jeanette picked Jess and I up and we went to the viewing. It was very sad and very beautiful that they had them in a casket together. Sue was very welcoming, seemed very happy that Jess still loved Melinda so much and that Melinda had also searched for Jess over the years. We could have but didn't stay for the private burial. WE were all pretty shook up. Jeanette didn't even make it to work today and Jess just called me from Romeos to ask me to call Sue and Jes was drinking. I called Sue and she had just heard that her Mother was in intensive care in Missouri after a heart attack. And I think my life sucks. Pat's gone to get Jess. She wants to visit Sue this week end. Jami has a 6,500 bond. I don't believe she will be geting out any time soon. Kirk and I decided not to let her know how slim her chances are of getting out on bond until at least tomorrow. 17 Aug 2005 - Sucky Day This has been an overall SUCK day and there are three hours left of it. We stopped to get Jeremy's Dr. statement for DHS and his new shrink signed him able to work although his therapist says he qualifies for disability. A suck thing to deal with. Then when we got home Jess said we all need to tlk and to start it off hse asked if I have anything I want to say to her and I don't knowhwt she was expecting. All I could think of was that I think she needs a psychiatrist to treat her for either bi polar or severe depression or both and then Nett came in and the conversation stopped to be continued later. Then I called Jami and she asked about the games she asked me to sell so I told her that I had talked to LIndsey and that Lindsey wanted them so had just bought Jami the things she needed and got her a Wal Mart card for the amount returning the game would have been and that I was sending Lindsey the game. She got pissed that this had gone on "behind her back" when all I was doing was trying not to embarass her by telling her I knew she'd misinformed me about Lindsey not being able to use the computer games. She said she was getting another call and hung up nd then called back a little while ago and told me that Jeff Deal had "Uncle Mike"'s computer for sale or trade for drugs. I told her it was MY laptop over and over but she kept calling it Mike's to piss me off as hse tried to tell me how it ended up where it is, tried to tell every kind of scenario under the sun about how I left it with her. I finally said no, you ended up with it when Jeremy and I were at that hotel and Mikey brought us all of his stuff and not mine like my laptop, pancho, make up and clothes. AAARRRGGGHHH I hate that everyone involved in that shit event except Mikey pretends it never happened. At best Jami says OK, yea, we were fighting or something. BULLSHIT. There was no fight until we got left out on Jess's porch to freeze to death. Why am I here?? I have Jami going on at me over how she didn't steal the things that she has that are mine, I have Jess wanting to have a talk like I have done or said something terrible and all I've done is try to help her and maybe someday understand her, and all they do is make me feel like shit. And I truly have no where else to go now. I wish I would just die. RIGHT NOW. 15 Aug 2005 - Melinda Yesterday we read and saw in the news that Jessi's childhood friend, Melinda Schwengels, and her 2 year old daughter, were killed in a car accident Saturday. Jess has looked for Melinda since they parted in the third grade. We have come close to finding her twice, and now it's too late. Melinda's 3 year old son is in the hospital still with a head injury and her boyfriend whowas driving is there, too, with a broken hip. Jess never found another "best" friend like Melinda was and was a loner for years after we moved 14 Aug 2005 - Irritated ARGGHHRG... Frustrated and angry, frustrated because I'm angry and can't say anything to those who piss me off because that always blows up and backfires on me. Jeremy and I took Jessalynn swimming last weekend for Jessi bacause she felt bad that she and Pat were going to Funplex without her. We had to miss our weekly shopping to do it and haven't been able to get Patrick to take us shopping all week. Jeremy asks to go to Wal Mart and Pat doesn't answer anad then he and Jess go and don't tell us. They don't care that there isn't food in the house cause they just go out to eat. Then Pat comes in the other day and says, Enjoy the internet while you have it, I'm shutting everything off unless Jami's collect calls get paid. I'm supposed to get the money for it from Mikey but they owe Mikey so SO much it is ridiculous and they could have paid it, they have aquired quite a lot of new expensive things since they knew about the phone bill and Mikey struggles and Jami eats at a homeless shelter. I hate how selfish Jessica and Patrick are. Nette and Jami would never be like they are. Jess will go on and on about Jami helping herself to her things but she is wearing shoes she stole from Jami and has smoked hundreds of cigarettes Jami not only bought but brought to her in better times not to mention all the times Mikey has transferred money to her account to cover bad checks or bailed Pat out of jail and paid his last ticket off. They know that I will suffer the most, if they suffer at all, with the house phone cut off because they both have cell phones. I know I know I know we should move out. I hate leaving Jessalynn here in this filthy house where she is always awake when Jess and Pat are asleep. I would freak if we left and something happened while they were asleep. I hate this... 7 Aug 2005 - Another visit to Crack Top, Iowa Every time I go to Crack Top I know something will go wrong although it is all really normal to those who live there. I can't believe this place exists outside of hell. We went to visit Jami and help her fix and clean an old trailer they drug to town. We took the bus and stopped at Mohm's Place to rest and eat and call her cell phone. Kirk answered and said that she was at the Chalet hotel. Mohm's Place is a homeless feeding station and I sat there looking around and noticed that all of the women in there eating had the same sores all over them that Jami does and I wondered that the men don't seem to look as bad as they do in that respect. I don't think there's a whole set of teeth in the place at any one time, the men look as bad as the women in that respect. We ate, hoping they would show up, and then hiked to the Chalet and they were staying in a room Heath's parents had paid a week on and he found an apartment and let Kirk and Jami have the last two days left. Jami looked about the same as last visit. They had been up at least 24 hours on meth when we got there. We just visitted with them and the string of customers the first night there. Jim was there. He gave me some Percoset for my legs. The bathroom was the banging room and there was always someone in there shooting up as usual. Jeremy and I fell asleep in the wee hours but everyone else was up all night. The next day, Jeremy and I got up and walked to Kenny's, where the trailer was parked. Everyone was still taking turns in the bathroom and we wanted to get started. They had been thrown out of Kenny's the day before, some stupid drug coming down fight as always. They all steal from each other and fight over things all the time. The trailer was a piled up mess. We filled 6 hefty bags with trash an seperated out clothes and household goods that might be needed and swept it out. That took all day and then they showed up, Jim first. As we were first walking up to Kenny's a guy on the porch, Willie, a local three brin celled village idiot, tried to start a fight with Jeremy but we just kept walking and ignored him. When we told Jim about it he put a wrench in his back pocket and said he was going to take care of Willie. Jeremy followed because Jim has a steel plate in his head and shouldn't fight anyone. Jeremy ended up between Willy and Jim stoppping Willie everytime he tried to run at Jim. Willie literally bounced off Jeremy's chest and clotheslined himself a couple of times on Jeremy's outsrtetched arm trying to get past him to Jim. I heard Willie's woman start in it screaming and cussing and I pocketted a knife and headed out front but it was over when I got there, Willy and his woman were getting in their cars. Then Jami and Kirk showed up and they were in the basement doing the last of the crank and Jeremy went in the house to use the bathroom and Kenny's daughter, Debbie, said that she saw that Punk sneaking out the back door. Jami flipped and an argument followed about Jeremy not beling a punk and then Jami wanted to get all of her stuff out of Kenny's house and into the trailer. I don't know why she ever took her things to Kenny & Robin's to begin with. They are the scummiest lowlife crack whore theives on Crack Top. They once stole my granddaughter Lindsey's money while cleaning Jami's house for crank pay. We got everything out of their house and packed into the trailer and Jami was getting their food out of the kitchen when Kenny blew up over two packs of Ramen Noodle he said was his. Jeremy was in there a the time, I was out back still. Jeremy says Jami just quietly said that she had a receipt for the ramen and Kenny and Robin started screaming st her to get out and the Robin started pushing her and Jeremy got in between them and then Kenny tried to take a swing at Jami and that was it for Jeremy. He got Jami out the door and blocked Kenny and Robin from getting at her and then Kenny grabbed Jeremy by the throat I guess not thinking that Jeremy's no a wasted crack head. I heard the yelling and when I got to the back porch Jeremy had Kenny by the throat against the back door but Kenny kept trying to hit and kick so Jeremy slammed him against the door a couple of times and threw him down the stairs. When Jeremy got down the stairs Kenny came running at him again, swinging, and Jeremy hit him and he went down. Another big guy started to step in for Kenny and Jeremy turned and looked at him and he backed away. Jim, Jami, Jeremy and I took off and went back to the hotel. Kirk had gone to buy a lock for the trailer and he showed up about an hour later after securing it the best he could. I wanted to come home but the busses had stopped running and I couldn't get a hold of Pat so Jeremy and I spent a miserable night on the floor. With the crank gone, Jami and Kirk slept that night and all the next day. We left at 1 pm and headed home. I have no idea where Jami is now. They left the hotel Yesterday adn Jami called me once and told me they were out of Oxys and desperate and in painful withdrawls, which was a bit of a surprise because I thought they were doing heroine and crank these days. I left Council Bluffs horrified by all I had seen. I left a lot of detail out. I don't understand how all of the life on ctack top goes on without law force intervention. What goes on there is plain as day, everyone knows everything about everyone, and yet it is just a part of CB. No one tries to hide their arms covered with tracks. Everyone must know that this area's adult achne isnn't hormonal. I see the police patrol the area. I've been at a house they were called to because neighbor complained about the traffic in and out. The cops came, checked everyone in the livingroom's ID, and left. At that time there were at least two other people hiding in the house and a wide selection of drugs. And the people themselves who are involved in Crack Top are a miserable, horrible bunch. They all steal anything they can get with no honor among thieves. They might steal from each other more than from the community. They argue and fight whenever the drugs run out and are running around rabid or near passing out when there are drugs available. Many of them have children they are "raising" and many of them are two or three generations shooting up together, like my daughter and her father. I have heard that there are those "high up", "suits", who are profitting from this tragedy somehow and that they have the law in their pockets. It sounds crazy, out of a movie, but I can't think of any other explanation that Crack Top goes on. Every now and then someone gets arrested for something petty or a crack house gets condemned and they put them out on the street. The doctor, Dr. Rosario, was arrested a few months ago for writing them illegal scripts but he went on very obviously for years before getting shut down. And it wasn't the local law that shut him down, it was the FBI. I want my daughter out of there. I wish I could bring the whole thing down without endangering those around me. I just need to know how. 28 Jul 2005 - Third Anniversary : ) Today is Herbert's birthday and Jeremy and I have been together three years today. Very cliche', but the time has flown by and it also feels like we have been together forever. I don't think anyone thought we would stay together except maybe my mother. I think we have both grown together and are both better people than when we began so, even with out traumatic life, it has been good. I still worry about the 19 year age gap but I hope for another three years and then some together and pray our lives grow easier. We met on the street, literally, went from Houston to Oklahoma to Omahs to Houston to Pasadena and back to Omaha, where I hope we will stay and find a good living. I still love my Jeremy very much. Here's to a great future!!!!! 27 Jul 2005 - none Days are just slipping by. We had our first cool day and chilly night yesterday. I can already se the end of summer although there is still plenty of hot weather to come yet. Jeremy has stepped up his thievery to survive and I hate that but don't know any other way to get by yet, We've started playing Tangleword again to have something to do together, Poverty is definitely a drag. I noticed our old house on 45th is for sle or rent and have dreams of getting it back someday. Still no word on Mom's settlement. It Mike really wanted us to trust him he would have made Dow information accessable to us. Sad day for Jess yesterday. She finally got her car fixed up, even the AC, went and took and passed her driving test and got her first lisence, and then got pulled over on her way to the insurance office and ticketted for no ins., registration, bad plates, etc. and then right after that hercar threw a rod through the transmission. Talk about a suck day!! Wil she ever be free?? You have to wonder if it's supposed to give her time to think about what she is to do with the fredom of mobility... I told her how much Pat loves her the other day without pissing her off. That's a new one! We go shopping with Nett often but haven't seen Janise in a long time cause Jeanette always goes shopping so late. Rob needs to fix his car!!! 20 Jul 2005 - My brother killed my mom and no one cares! I sat here with the knowledge that my brother, Mike, had killed my nother for over a year, rolling it around in my head, finally decided to turn him in and let the law decide if he was guilty of at least criminal negligence, and nothing happened. Mike is a brilliant man in a bookish way and considers himself more educated than doctors about medicine and healing. Our mom was in the hospital and very ill and her doctor gave Mike permission to feed her wheat grass and juiced juices through her feeding tube, so Mike was putting everything he could think of that he read related to her conditions including DMSO, 33% peroxide, habanero peppers, enzymes, vitamins, on and on and her potassium shot up and the doctor asked if Mike was doing anything to raise her potassium level. Mike asked why, and the doctor said that her blood tests were showing a dangerous amount of potassium lately that could cause heart failure. Mike looked down at him and said, "Don't you know the latest research? I've been reading a book from Europe on this subject, and when the body shows potassium in the blood, it means the body is out of potasium and putting the last of it into the blood stream." A short time later Mom went into cardiac arrest and they brought her back and tests showed high potassium to be the most likely cause. When Mike got there I told him what had happened and that the doctor had said absolutely no more potassium. Two hours later Mike called me and told me that mom was dead. When I got to the hospital, he was sitting in the front lobby and he told me that he was so sure he was right that he had given her pure potassium after I left and that she had another heart attack and died. When I finally turned what I knew over to crimestoppers, NOTHING. Could it be because my brother is a Harris county constable? Or is it not illegal to accidently kill your mother trying to prove the doctor wrong??? I don't know. I just know he is still out there, practicing medicine without a lisence for the last ten years, experimenting like some mad scientist, and I don't want him anywhere near me if I am incapacitated and dying. By the way, there was no love lost between my mom and brother. Just another experiment gone wrong. 17 Jul 2005 - A Trip to Crack Top I had stayed away as long s I could, I had to go see my daughter Jami even if it meant waundering around cracktop. Jeremy nd I took a bus to Council Bluffs and went to Mom's Free Dinner for the homeless to meet Jami. She came there but said that she has to met her ex at a store up the road to get money and a bicycle from him and she's be right back. After 45 minutes we figured out that if she was getting money it was going straight to a drug house so we went looking for her and there she was. Very sweet, sorry to leave us hanging, and looking terrible. Hr face is more broken out than I have ever seen it and she lost all of the weight she gained in jail. Since it was already gettin late, the last bus back to Omaha leaves at 9, we agreed to spend the night, and I was curious to se how her life there was going, if she could survive until the police caught up with her for skipping out on probation and rehab. She told us how Heath's and Jeff's places had been raided the day before and that one arrest had been made at Heath's and the building condemned and everyone put out. She was walking towards Jeff's when she saw the police car there and went elsewhere, but she's running out of places to hide. We walked over to Jeff's place and he started threw a fit when we walked in and told Jami she had to move out and they were yelling at each other and I believe Jeff hit and or pushed her, Jeremy and I were outside, Jeremy went in then and got betwen them while Jami gathered some of her things. Jeff is the biggest crank smoking asshole pervert you will ever meet anywhere - I hope she is done with him and sorry he wsn't caughtwith anything when the police visitted him!! His main problem seems to be that Kirk stopped giving him freebies. Jami and Kirk were at Sandy's the night we were there. There were all kinds of crack heads and junkies coming in and out all night until around 1 am when someone said COPS OUTSIDE. We were sitting in the bedroom and Kirk came and told us to sit tight and shut and locked the door to the room and we sat in there with who knows what drugs while the po po came in and checked everyone's ID. Jami had grabbed her black abox and run out the back door and got away. I don't know how long we really sat in that little room, it felt like forever, wondering if we would go down for Kirk's backpack and whatever else was stashed in the room. But the Police left after checking everyone's ID in the living room and not arresting anyone or searching. We sat there an hour or so and Jami returned to get a few things and she and Kirk took off to hide out the night elsewhere and left us there. We didn't have any way to get back to Omaha so we just sat there. No TV, no radio, just sat there all night. Sandy busted in a few times to rant about Jami staying thre and give us a hard time about being there, and we would have gone anyplace else if there had been anyplace else to go at 3 am!!! What a twacked out psycho bitch. They say her brother was brutally murdered and she ain't been right since, but she lost a baby to DHS recently for being born addicted to meth and she had a choice of having her older son live with her or throwing out Kirk, the drug man, and the son lives elsewhere. Jami came in around 6 am and she fell asleep right away on the daybed so we fell asleep on the loveseat until around 1 pm. We spent the day although we really didn't see much of Jami. Even when she was there she was in the bathroom or the basement shooting up. It is so hard to sit there in the middle of it and try to remind myself of the Naranon logic. I just want to drag her out of there and lock her up somewhere and get her off the shit and herself again. We visitted more with her father, Jim, who dropped by, than her. Went to supper with him at Mom's Place and he even walked us to the bus stop when we left. He has cleaned himself up a lot and is on the same page as us about getting Jami off the strets and off the drugs. I gave Jami a bus ticket, told her how to get to us with it anytime she wanted, tried to get her to come to Omaha with us but of course she wasn't ready for that and we really need to move into our own apt. first because she isn't welcome here by her sister. The bus out of CB was late so we missed our connection from downtown to Benson. I called Nette, who had been drinking and couldn't drive, so she tried to three way Patrick but there was no answer, and then surprise of all surprises, Rob offered to come get us and he did and was very, very pleasant. Two nightmare days on Crack Top, three hours sitting downtown, finally back "home" to our own problems here. What a life. 15 Jul 2005 - Something to do! Now this is boredome. Happy to have a doctor appt today for something to do. Being broke and disabled is the worste drag these days. I know it will get better. I'll find a way to do SOMETHING to make money. That's what it comes down to. I don't take that bullshit that money can't buy happiness. It might not buy love, I have that broke!! But Happy??? I want money to do things with and for the ones I love. And don't tell me about the free things to amuse oneself with. Well, not unless you know of a good one like some of the fourth of July free events. Sitting the park picking glass and syringes out of the play sand is comunity service but not fun. Haven't even seen a pigeon there to feed. Got a bus to catch. 14 Jul 2005 - Maybe this day will be better... It's noon and Jess is up. She is distant but a little nicer. Traded her a new pen and lighter fora cigarette. Pat's mom. Linda, and I took Jess's car to the shop tody to get the frame straightened.Jeremy's restless but there is nothing to do that doesn't involve walking and it is about 97 degrees out. HoHom. 14 Jul 2005 - Morning ramble Funny, I have been so worried about whether or not jessi liked Jeremy that I never even thought about whether or not he liked her. I don't think I even gave him a choice in my mind. Love me love my kids. He does love my girls. He would do anything for them, but it is a love extended through me and how I love them. But LIKE them? He likes Jami a lot, is warming up to Nette, but is having trouble. He thinks she is rude, slovenly, self-obsesses, manipulative, cruel to Pat and lets Jessalynn run wild, and not even Nette said a word in her defence. And I know she can be and maybe is all of those things but I still thrill when she deigns to smile at me or be nice. I'm a sick puppy!! I'm not so sure I should have gone to bi-weekly therapy. I could use daily therapy. Ah, and there is another part of the puzzle. I think Jess herself needs therapy and/or medication and believe in my heart there is a good, sweet, person inside of all of that. OHHH, but I did say that about her father for twenty years and look what was inside of him!!!!! 14 Jul 2005 - Hohum Another day. Walked to DHS, then to 30th and caughta bus to No frills, bus to park, walk home. Ate some pretty nasty pot pies that had been thawed for a week or so and we both fell asleep an hour or so. Like I said. HOHUM. Getting ready to start supper, which means dig out the kitchen first. I hear Jeremy down there starting the scraping, soaking and stacking. No one even scrapes their plates here. I see how they end up throwing away dishes when they live alone. Jess is still pretty cold. She smiles that tight Wish you were as great as me smile at us and says as little as she can. She is much different if I have a pain script around!! I guess I didn't really see how awful living here has been for Jeremy until now. I can think Jessalynn is just cute and perfect but, when it's not your own granddaughter, I bet the fact that she isn't disciplined is relly tough to handle. Pat says it's Jess's fault but he can be just as bad as her when he is here and, to tell the truth, he is too rough with her when he finally does get pissed. He doesn't hit her or anything but I've seen him fling her into her carseat like a sack of flour when she's upset him. This house stays depressingly filthy and smelly. We try, but with all the walking and other things we have to do to survive, and being the only ones who clean at all, we just can't keep up. I'm depressed by the mess every day but it's a losing battle to clean it. I feel bad for Jessalynn. Her room is always a disaster and this house is NOT childproof at all. It's not adult proof! I tried to do the positive thinking thing with Jess the first few months and tried to encourage her to get help like back on medication because she says she used to wake up in the mornings on Paxil. I'd tell her the house isn't that bad and try to make it manageable for her, but she doesn't want to manage it and now doesn't want me here to do it for her either. Jeanette has said for three years that Jess shouldn't have a dog or a child here and it makes me angry because I know that Jess loves them very much but the fact is that neither are cared for properly by anyone's standards. We have to get out of here before it drives us both nuts. 12 Jul 2005 - UPDATE!!! Wow. Life sure can change. We are in Omaha, Nebraska, where I swore I would never return to. Not that Texas turned out all that great. We got ticketted for running a home business without a lisence and ended up living in a tepee Jeremy built with no running water or power (of course, it was a tepee...) and everyone says "OOOHHH how awful!" but lemme tell you. There was a peace there. Nothing but the good old fashion struggle to survive and each other to love and care for. Then we got a dramatic call from my oldest, Jami, she was about to give birth and terrified because she and her husband, Mikey, had been using drugs. They sent us bus tickets to come ASAP and we left everything and came here into chaos. The baby was born the night before we arrived. She was moved from the air force hosp. to Methodist Children's right away because she had a hole in her lungs. Turned out, she had so much Meth and Oxycontin in her system that they said it would take two weeks for her to start withdrawls. Jami took the fall for it alone so Mikey could get the kids, two older ones were taken into foster care, and Mikey put Jami and Jeremy and me out of the house. Jami went to a detox center where Mikey visitted and told her he was divorcing her, and she has pretty much been drifting around ever since. Jeremy and I came to stay with my youngest daughter, Jess, and have been here ever since. 29 Aug 2004 - Thanks to Jamis and Spybot Still having trouble but things are much betterwith Spybot and Jami advising me over the phone which can't be easy because I always get what she tells me much later but I do get it. Funny I have been able to access this website through most of this crash. I still can't get into anything else that I enjoy but I'm working on it. It's storming here, a cold front coming in. :-) We are in trouble as usual here. Water bill due Monday. Phone long over due. Food is scarse. One month until we can start legally selling all of this crap we got. We can call it a yard sale for five days for ten dollars and then for a hundred we can run our garden and resale business for a year for another hundred dollars. Hmmm. Free enterprise. Gotta go. Cheers. 27 Aug 2004 - Bogged down with spyware Hello. I am trapped in spyware. This is the first site I have been able to access in days. I'm headed to a download site for spy remover. I had to remover everything new from my pc to get ths far and adware is still popping up but less. Jami, if you can send me that spy remover, please try. 22 Aug 2004 - Beautiful Storms Finally, it has been storming and raining for two days. :-) It's been so long since it rained here that I have things full grown out there that have never seen real rain. I wonder if they're scared? We sat out on the leaky porch and watched some of the really windy, thundery part of the storm this morning. We both love storms and hurricanes etc. We walked to the store in the rain last night. Nice and cool. We have plenty of indoor work to do until the storms are over. I hear our yard frogs croaking. Mom got fined so many times for having croaking frogs around her ponds. I wish she had lived long enough to enjoy this place with us. Not that she's not here. I feel her here,although not constantly like the first couple of months. I bore her. She likes the excitement around the girls and their girls. But she loves the peace I live in when I find it and the place Jeremy and I are creating here together. The neighbors don't complain about the frogs and we wouldn't care if they did. The only ones close enough to be bothered have roosters "hidden" in their back yard who aren't too quiet at 4 am. I was out gardening the other day wearing Mom's garden hat and Krisha's clothes and I had a weird moment that I felt like I was in a line up between life an death. And it was OK. Like natural. 20 Aug 2004 - Planting cacti It's been Friday for about an hour. Worked on the plant shop some today. Found out tongs work very well for transplanting cacti w/o getting finger stickers. Emailed Jami asking her to call me but then accidently left the pc logged on after for a couple of hours. We gave the weed man 100 and he was happy with us so we got some groceries. Made a potroast tonight. MMMMM. Eating roasted marshmallow as i type this with one hand. no caps now. We even have real toilet paper today. life is good. Just wish Jeremy would bring me another marshmallow. OOhhh. He Did. :-) 19 Aug 2004 - Another day in poverty The plastic scrubbie things work really well for removing cactus prickers. It's clouding up and acting like it's going to storm. Gloomy right now but maybe it'll straighten up and turn into a proper raging storm. Jeremy is carrying in some file cabinets a friend dropped off for us to organize our last gift from God, the leavings of a going out of business dollar store. We have boxes and baskets of stuff piled everywhere and I'm sitting in the middle of it writing this. on break so to speak. We have food tonight, stuff to make beanie weenie and I have everything except bacon to make bean with bacon soup. Boring huh. Poverty can be very boring. You have to reset your excitement level. I used to get excited about going out to eat at a nice restaurant. Now I get excited when I find a box of coffee filters to use for toilet paper. I can add to my list of bullshit I know the fact that a queen size sheet makes enough toilet paper to last two people a week if you tear it into t.p. width strips. Charmin still rules but old sheets work. We don't qualify for food stamps because we don't have a "real" job we can prove income from. Food stamps are reserved for those with kids and those who scam them. Honest people trying to start a business don't qualify. Funny world 16 Aug 2004 - The dead live I listened to "Knights in White Satin" today for the first time sinnce Herbert died. It came on while we were working in the yard. I almost made it through it when I thought about how awful the stereo was at that funeral home. I thought how we didn't express Herb right. We should have had a dynomite system and made every one feel the music. And then I realized for the first time that I should have taken my girls with me to his funeral so there would have been more real love and warmth there. More people who really knew and loved him. And then I started crying and Jeremy realized that he hadn't changed the station like he usually did when KIWS comes on the radio. But he said, "Hey, it really is ok, Baby. Doesn't Herbert still live through you like you say that your mom still does?" And I froze, that deer caught in the headlights of a new glaringly obvious thought. Of course he does. I was working in the yard when the song came on. Watering the squash and okra. And Herbert was planting beans the night he died. It was the last thing he did. And I stood there seeing dozens of ways I keep him alive, too. I stop crying and smiled at my Jeremy who I think every day how much he and Herbert would have liked each other. All of them live again every time I tell their story or carry on their ideas and plans for their own lives. I enfold the best of each into myself to deliver them lovingly to those here who weren't as lucky to know them as I did. They all still live everywhere I am. :-) 15 Aug 2004 - Starting a website that links here I'm going to try this a a link in a personal website where I let it all hangout. I will be on a journey of recovery nad revival physical, Mental, and spiritual. I was once able to express myself and amuse inwriting and hope to create something fluid out of current chaos. 9 Aug 2004 - Beginning in the middle To many I live very dangerously and right on the edge and I'm pretty sure most believe it to be the edge of some evil hell. There are those who have known me all my life who tremble in fear at the mention of my name. My life, while maybe on the edge and verge of many things, is mostly boring. It's those litty bitty bits that getcha. My boyfriend is nineteen years younger than me. Ouch. I haven't had a regular job in three years. Ouch. I live in a trailer without electricity. Ouch. No place for you except your fifteen minutes on Jerry Springer! But, no. I live very quietly. Too quietly. I don't enjoy social situations at all any more. Not that the world is lining up to socialize right now. They're still watching and waiting to see if my head spins around and about ten of them will tell you they've seen me levitate. It would be funny 15 Aug 2004 - Starting a website that links here I'm going to try this a a link in a personal website where I let it all hangout. I will be on a journey of recovery nad revival physical, Mental, and spiritual. I was once able to express myself and amuse inwriting and hope to create something fluid out of current chaos.if it wasn't so often tragic and then it still can be pretty funny. That's what I'll be looking for here. I know I've misplaced asense of humor that is dying to return.

March 36th,2006 I've been desperateely trying to wake up my muse and am beginning to think she either moved out or is hiding. All these years, I've scribbled in notebooks, most of which, years and years of writing, are gone. Jeremy's mother knew I'd kept up with those journals and notebooks since I was 8 yrs. old. She even gave me a journal and pen for Christmas. Before my appendix exploded. Before she realized it would take Jeremy away if I had to go home to recover. Whatever. Then, for years before then, there were all the years raising kids, mine, theirs, others, and working different jobs, sometimes at once, that I told myself that I would get back to writing ASAP. ASAP actually came sooner than I ever expected. I figured when I was about 70, but now being disabled, I find myself with the opportunity and no idea what to write! There is the chance that the pain I am in and the meds I take some how block my Muse. Except that I know Muses are magical. I'm pretty sure Poe was three sheets to the wind when he wrote some of his masterpieces. I am the block. Maybe the physical pain. Just took a big dose of pain meds and have Herb's heating pad on my back. We'll see...  I write a lot of email, especially to my pen pal, Beaver. I really enjoy our penpalship. It is warm, witty, and even sometimes wise. He's a remarkable man and brings out a Little Muse in me to write to letters. I feel it. It's a familiar feeling in that I have had a lot of mail relationships with members of my family, being a letter writer since I was six. I received my first letter from a girl named Dianna Ross when I had to leave Louisiana and go to Kansas because the doctor said I needed a dryer climate. I still write snail mail letters to Jami, and very rarely Lindsey, but I now use Email if at all possible. Not that it's always easier for me, but some of the features on a computer i.e. being able to save what you write when you have a bad memory comes in pretty handy. Sometimes I feel a Little Muse writing letters, I suppose because I am trying to be entertainiong enough to make it worth their time to read! But no sign of THE Muse. Surely, I'll figure out how to get her back. There is an episode of Raymond in which he writes a book that is turned down by his publisher, and Robert, ever ready to put Ray 'in his place', says, "Hmmm... thousands of crappy books get published every day, and yours got turned down, so..." Ya know, that is a terrible thought. And my Muse gently sleeps. Maybe weeps. Maybe she wants out, too. January 30, 2006 I won my disability case September 26, 2005 and my medicaid started in December. I was able to go to doctors outside of the County Clinic, finally, and found those who believe in and will treat fibromyalgia, as well as the other problems I have, and now have a Dr. Blair as my primary Care Phys. in Council Bluffs. I use narcotics now under his supervision and have hope that I will find a balance of life again. My monthly $600. from SSI started this month and I am still waiting for my 4 year settlement that will change my world. Right now, I pretty much hate the life Jeremy and I are living, but we both hang on knowing that things are going to change for us. I have enjoyed very much of it, but living with Jess and Pat hs been the hardest by far on Jeremy, especially since I have been laid up with a back injury for over a month now and Jeremy does all of the dishes and cooking, when there is food to cook. He is almost never thanked for what he does around here, and pretty much treated like crap. Jeremy can go ask Pat a simple question and if Pat's in a bad mood he gets "Are you f---ing with me?!" and Jeremy backs down because of me. Not to say that Jeremy is no piece of cake to live with either! He takes a lot of understanding and patience and pretty much lives in denial of his mental disabilities, which can be very hard to deal with.We just should have moved out long ago.He can no longer keep up with this place, especially now that they have a new puppy, there is a drying pile of dog shit about four feet from where I'm sitting.We are house hunting, hope the settlement comes in before we have to settle for a tiny place we can afford on what we get now, but I have promised Jeremy to get us out of here. And I beieve that it will help Jess and me grow closer to not be under the same roof with her boyfriend, and for me not to be in the middle of so much of her business with Patrick. I love Patrick very much, as a person, a friend, and as the father of Jessalynn, and that makes Jess believe sometimes that I think they should stay together no matter what, when I really believe that they should do whatever makes them both the happiest. UPDATE 2005   Jeremy and I gave up the Ganja after Michelle Rose was born. We had planned to try and get on "legal" meds for our problems when we came to Omaha, but Michelle's birth gave us that big push. It was easier for me than Jeremy, but he had a longer habbit and more of a psychological adiction. But we did it. We have been going to Douglas Co. Pshche to try to find legal drugs for our problems and are both in regular therapy, but I can't say the drugs are helping us too much except Jeremy is having less seisures now taking twice as much Tegretol. And sleepint thrice as much. I have found nothing else that helps the pain of my fibromyalgia. I have a doctor who "doesn't believe" in fibromyalgia, and that doesn't help!!! Makes me want to try some vodoo! I told him I would experiment with the street drugs I could find and he said Go Ahead. Great doctor. I did, and I found out that there is nothing so far that works that doesn't also knock me on my butt and/or make me puke. Hydrocodone still worked at first but my resistance built up quick and I gave up. So, I can pass a piss test but I live in pain. Thanks for the help Dr.Jeff @ DC Primary Health Care!!   Life in Nebraska I recently won my disability case in court and am waiting for it to begin. And pretty much for my life to begin again. Jeremy and I have been living at Jess's for seven months, and it has often been hard on all of us, but gone amazingly well especially considering that I brough a boyfriend into the mix. It has been phschologically hard to return to the place of my destruction, a city haunted by bad memories, and we haven't really made many new, good, memories here, except through getting to know my grandchildren. We live a poor existance, do whatever it takes to survive as always, and Jeremy and I cling to each other knowing that in the end that we are all each has in this world. Everything else can disappear, we know this from experience, but we survive it because we have each other. I've been tring to rebuild relationships with my girls. Jami was the easiest, likely because she is the oldest, even if she has had drug problems for what seens like forever, she was the first to open up her heart to me, and the only to love my Jeremy. Things went a little slower with Jeanette, partly because she says she was kept in the dark about my arrival in Omaha, but also because of the last rift between us and the fact that it is hart to apologize for because she was caught so many oposing forces, and that the war was actually beteen Rob's mother and me. Rob, too got caught in the crossfire, I think he knew his mother was wrong but, well, she's his mother. And I don't think he saw or admitted to her drug problems until much later. Jeanete and I began softly, not asking anything of each other except for the chance to be together again and share the wonders of little Janise, and have grown close again, but this time as women, not just as mother and daughter. She is currently 7 weeks pregnant, and we are happy about it, timing and all. She and Rob are good parents. I believe Rob and I will be close again someday, we have been working on it. We have been living with Jess and Pat which isn't the best way to get reaquainted. Especially since they are a couple still and almost always at war with each other. Our number one thing in common is loving 3 year old Jessalynn Jess and Pat do manage to be good parents and share a love of Jesalynn that is likely what has held them together while they are both growing up themselves. In my heart I hope they work it all out and decide to be a family, with each other. I'm still not as close to Jessica as  I would like to be, I don't know if anyone is, although I think she really wants to be close to someone, but she hasn't chosen any of those around her to open up to. My girls are not close to each other. That is one of the sadest things. I never expected this distance between them, especially between Jess and Jeanette. Jami and Jess were close for a few years when they had drugs and hating me in common, but have drifted apart in a sea of misunderstanding. Jeanette tried to at lest keep taking care of Jess but was seen as intrusive instead of helpful, so she was never appreciated, but reviled, and is now bitter, but still tries to help. Jami and Nett have never been close but have been asking me for each other's contact information, so maybe there will be a future sisterhood there. I hope there is one in the future for all of them. Jess has just had the hardest time growing up because she has the hardest time letting go of the past, which all too often appears rosier that it actually was, and seems better than her present to her. She still doesn't know that she has to make her future, but she is still very young, very introspective, and will hopefully get it and start really living her life in the present. Jami took some huge knocks to understand that she is her own destiny, Jeanette took a few but mostly learned by watching others make mistakes and taking notes, and  we are all waiting and praying for Jess to break through. She is crippled with depression, bulemia, and a poor self image, just has to realize that only she can fix all of it. I beg my therapist to help me help her and she keeps saying, Jess is a bright young woman, she will decide to save herself or not, there's nothing you can do. She said the same about Jami, but I can't stop trying with either, and I still believe I play a big part in Jami's recovery of herself. Just being here and always loving her, accepting her in any condition even if I disapprove, has touched her heart. I still hope to touch Jessi's heart. I have even forged a relationship with Jami's father, Jim, since I've been back. We have learned to respect each other and share our parenthood of Jami, and Jim totally accepts Jeremy in the role of stepfather to Jami and partner to me. Mikey has divorced Jami but still stands by her and takes care of her as well as doing an excellent job as a  single parent to Joey and Michelle. He is also a great friend to Jeremy and me, still family with us, and we both love spending time with him. Lindsey is still my sweet sunshine, and thriving with her fatherin California, where I plan to visit her ASAP.Last but not least, I now have a Pen Pal, Beaver, in Minnesota, who I exchange daily emails with and have a really nice relationship with. He is witty and warm and often my confidant these days. We are very different yet have the strangest things in common so I think that we somehow help each other. I never really expected to find such a friend on the evil internet, but there he is. And that's my world October, 2005.       While still in Texas                                                 2004 I don't have much love for life in this world although there are still people and things that I care about very much. I have no love for the world we are a part of. I stoutly believe in God but I'm not always any more thrilled with Him than He is with me. I read the Bible. Not like I used to. I'm not guilt ridden and reading to save my black soul and I'm not searching for any answers. I just like the stories and how nicely the Bible alignes with my own beliefs even if religion does not. I love the outdoors and growing things. I have hundreds of plants that I take meticulous care of. I walk them every morning and evening, checking them for damage or whatever they might need. I hate dealing with people to sell them but love it when they are admired and bought. My forays into hamanity have made me greatly appreciate plant life. And fish. Our pond currently only has two fat female fancy tail guppies and dozens of half grown babies and a plecostamus, but if you sit there you will see all kinds of other tiny life in the water. The pond is over two feet deep and, thanks to accidently leaving the hose on in it, the water is very clear right now. You can see the little schools of fishies swimming around the tiny new leaves starting on the lillies. I spend the majority of my time with these friends and my Jeremy. Jeremy is always nearby. We have received this gift of peace and harmony together and share it and everything. I don't ever for a second miss the world that drew away from me or the illusion that any of it mattered. Those who shut me out ultimately set me free to have a new life. I don't think I would have this at all if my mother hadn't been able to take a stand for and then with me before she died. That would have changed everything. This would be a story of a whipped dog scurrying out of the way of heavy booted feet instead of a story of quiet Triumph. Jeremy and I get the most amazing gifts. Some very big and some so small I'm sure we fail to notice and give thanks, but they are so meant for us that their message is meant to be. If we need an unusual blade holder for a razor, Jeremy will find one on the way to the store. Our last gift was my Geisha. We were walking to the store at 1 am to avoid the heat of day and Jeremy said, "Do you hear a cat?" I froze and listened to the still night and heard a faint howling in the distance that I was amazed as always that he noticed. We followed the sound and it got really loud, this cat was howling and I was sure it was huge and then we saw it. A tiny 10 week old kitten sitting by the road mowling its lungs out. It ran to us and we took her shopping with us and she is now part of our little family. More later. Seeya.