Friday, I can't get anything done!

         Sorry lost my post, but my whole day has been like that. Had to talk my Mom off the ledge a couple of times this morning and then calls from the kids.  Had a lunch appointment with an old friend from out of town.  Started a post and it disappeared into blog land.  Then I get a phone call from some outfit that jumpers electricians into remote areas to fix large electrical towers.  They had three jumpers with defunct zippers in their jumpsuits.  Now this is the middle of no where when it comes to sewing supplies.  I order most of my stuff in from catalogs.  So I had to run to JoAnns and jury rig 3 sleeping bag zippers into these flight suits.  Which I am telling you are so fun to work on. NOT  I just got them done so now I am a little behind.  But $150.00 richer:)

     Took hubby with me to the store last night to get cat food.  Came out with $91.00 worth of groceries.  How does that happen?  We did not do a grocery shop last week because we were out of town but still.  Why is everything so expensive?  D#2's 26 Birthday is tomorrow so both girls will be down for the weekend.  She wants a pumpkin pie for her cake.  I will make several pies tomorrow.  Everyone loves pumpkin pie.  We will even eat it for breakfast.  Hubs and I need to go and get my mom about 4-5 hours away and bring her back here for a while.  We might be doing that as early as Sunday afternoon.  We will see how things ride.  I think she just needs to rest and be taken care of for a while.  But I love it when she comes.

     I hope to get more yard work done tomorrow, at least the garden put away and clean up around the pond.  Cut back the wisteria. Whose idea was it to plant that thing?  Okay I will admit it was mine.  But now that it is grown it is like Hysteria in the back yard.  I swear it gets more haircuts than hubby.

     I have made $471.00 in the shop so far this week.  So back into the emergency fund it goes.  I just love working hard to replace money I did not want to spend don't you?  Okay enough sarcasm.


     Saga continued:

     Over the next 4 years we would have a series of foreign students live with us.  Some times we would have two.  I saw this as a way to earn money and it really did not pan out well.  We had some wonderful students and some really bad ones.  I had 5 that I would have adopted and about 15 that I wanted to strangle most of the time they were here.  Our first 3 were wonderful and then the rest just got worse and worse.  Demanding always thought you owed them something, messy, dishonest.  It was a nightmare.  My kids hated it and it was costing us money.  They would sneak food out of the house for their friends.  We really tried to live by the contract so we were constantly taken advantage off.

     I was wearing so many different hats.  Teacher, director, choreographer, cleaner, mother, wife.  Just too much.  I look back on those years and I don't know how I did it.  I was very good at bartering to get things done for the house.  I sewed a Wedding for a new kitchen floor.  Hubs and I went into a lumber supply company to get a plumbing part and found that  all the cedar wood in the place was going for cost.  It was November.  I called a school back and agreed to do a show for them for $1000.00 so we could get every scrap of cedar they had.  We stored it over the winter and in the spring Hubs and one of our exchange students tore off the huge rotten deck and replaced it with cedar.  It was beautiful.  Then we saved the good wood from the deck and built a tool house that looks like our house.  Richard came and put in lights and plug ins.  I wanted a window but both Hub's and Richard said no.  As they would then have to live out in the shed if I got mad.  We still saw Richard off and on.  He would come before Christmas for steel head season and stay until late March.  I was very careful to not let him get into projects that would run up money.  He was frustrated but behaved himself.  Richard's memory was slipping he was closing in on 78 and it was a worry to all of us that knew him.

     Our yard was huge and very barren.  Just a few trees.  I had huge flower beds full of nothing but weeds.  A good friend of mine who drives truck during harvest told me about a friend of hers that was starting a greenhouse out on the edge of town.  She did not have money to hire help but would gladly take a fast worker for a few hours  a day during planting time in exchange for all the flowers I could walk a out with.  This was great.  I would drop S and B off at their respective schools and go transplant trays of flowers.  I was very fast and thorough.  Both her husband and she were shocked at how much I could get done.  The following season  I went to work for them and they added another green house.  I agreed to work 4 hours a day in exchange for plants and as her husband was a contractor I had him put the escape hatch windows into our basement.  We have two huge bedrooms in the basement with nice walk in closets that have a Jack and Jill bath between them.  But with out the daylight windows that a fire fighter could escape from in full gear the house could only be listed as a 2 bedroom house.  I was always finding some way to get things done.  But I was not bringing in much money.

     Of course sewing was really slacking off I wasn't working the business.  The house was chaos and I just wanted to escape.  If I was out of the house I did not have to deal with the mess.  D#1 would come home on weekends and clean   Does this sound familiar?  I started substitute teaching at schools.  Our school district is very strict about substitutes.  They must have a teaching degree.  I did not.  But I was on campus every morning and when they could not find a sub they would ask me to come back and sit in until one was located.  It became obvious that with a history degree and an engineering degree, I could teach, math, science, writing, history and the dancing made me perfect for P.E..  So I was the first grandfathered non accredited sub in the district.  I could sub every day if I wanted to.  I did a lot of subbing but the pay was not very good and I was sick all the time.  I had strep throat 6 times in one year.  This was just not normal  Now I wasn't sewing I was subbing, and teaching, and cleaning, and directing.

     During this chaotic time my sister was in Europe.  She came to visit me in my new to me house.  She says when she turned the corner into the street she could not believe her eyes.  She was so amazed.  This beautiful Swiss Chalet house on a hill with a huge manicured lawn.  Could I really possibly live there?  She claims she could never take care of something like this but I know that she could do a much better job than I.
Well my Sissie was shocked.  The outside was lovely but the inside was a disaster.  Not that I hadn't cleaned (crisis cleaned)  but every cupboard and drawer was bursting.  There was a layer of crud on almost every surface.  She hit me upside the head like the whirlwind she is and had my place ship shape in about 10 days. She also spent a ton of money on things that made my home easier to take care off.  Rugs, blinds, towels, cleaners, organizers.  I owe her so much.  Then she went home and things returned to normal.

     Daddy was a financial drain.  If I wasn't, buying something, I was traveling out there because he was sick, or broke his leg or had a stroke.  Sometimes in the summer Sis would go with me but usually I shouldered this burden on my own.  We always stayed at Richards.  His place was bigger and because my step-mom was a hoarder, it was hard to see the house in that condition.  This would upset Dad.  Why were we always over at Richards?  Gee Dad get a clue.  Dad had a stroke in July of 2004.  I went back with the 2 youngest girls.  They stayed with Richard but I stayed at Dad's.  I had to crawl over boxes of things to get to my sofa bed.  Dad was playing a poker tournament on the Internet in his hole of a den.  I sat on that sofa and read trash novels for 5 days.  My  dad ate fried eggs, toast (white wonder bread foam crap) for breakfast.  He had white bread and government cheese for lunch and a fried pork chop and potatoes for dinner.  No veggies, no fruit.  Amazing.  No wonder he had a stoke.  The freezers were full of food, but Dar hoarded everything like she was in a bomb shelter.  Well she was, the place looked like it had been bombed.

     In 2002 Dad and Dar both sought the cure.  Both were terrible alcoholics and I could tell you some pretty insane stories about my previous visits to them.  On Christmas of 2002  Dad and Dar had been on a night on the town and were on their way early in the morning to Fargo to spend Christmas with my Aunt Ann.  Dad was pulled over by the highway patrol and even though it had been several hours since he had had a drink his blood alcohol level was  over the legal limit.  This was so embarrassing for him to ruin Christmas and have to be bailed out of jail by his brother in law.  They had no money, he did not have a license, he did not have insurance and he did not have good plates on the car.  So typical dad.  His fines were atrocious, he was not allowed to drive for a year.  Of course he ignored that once he got back to Turtlelake.  He was picked up over and over until he had to acknowledge that one played by the rules.  You must license your car, you must keep liability insurance, you must pay your fines and debts to society.  You see rules were for everyone else.  Not for him. This is a terrible trait  to pass on to your offspring.  All of us kids inherited this.  We were special, rules were for other people.  Boy did it take me a long time to figure that one out.  But Dad was able to give up alcohol.  I don't know how he did it after all those years.  He also gave up smoking just like that.  Amazingly strong will power.  If he gained weight he would just quit eating and lose it.  For someone who was so lackadaisical about life he had some real strengths.  Dar would soon follow his example.  It was amazing.

     The only real bad fight Dad and I ever had was over religion. He had sinned in every way possible his whole life.  I was always very religious.  Religion was what got me through my childhood.  I truly believe in my faith, it brings me much happiness and strength.  Now Dad finds the cure and religion.  His church preached against Mormonism.  We were of the devil.  He was going to save me.  Let me tell you.  My conversation with him was much like my mothers.  You have taken everything away from me that you possibly could you will not take my faith.  I told him he was approaching a very rocky road and he had better zip it up or suffer the consequences. He shut up.  I don't believe in religious bigotry.  There is only one God and he loves, me and Sluggy, and Judy, and Tanner, and Rhitter, and Jane, and Sharon and Mysti all the same.  He is no respecter of persons.  I don't care how you worship or if you worship, but let me and mine do as we wish and we will let you do the same.

     I think not drinking made dad a more respectable person.  He was very active in civic organizations.  He was helpful to those in need.  I remember one visit there was a terrible rain storm and dad took off down the street to cover the tomatoes of an old man who only had one arm and would not be able to do it in time.  He was just kind like that.  When he was sober he was great.   He and Richard fished and fought over cribbage on a daily basis.  It was a real scene out of Grumpy old Men.

      Saga cont:

Hubby is home, several customers have been here.  I now have over $500.00 Yippee!

Have a great and productive day!

Kim