3…2…1…2009

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Happy new year! Sort of.  I know I’m a little late. It’s almost January 2nd. By now, news years is so over and it’s time to put up your Valentine’s day decorations.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. This was, by far, one of the best ones yet for us. Deven got showered with gifts, and we were reminded of just how loving and wonderful our families are. I have a wonderful husband, the most beautiful son, a loving dad and step mom, and the 2 most caring, kind-hearted, fun brothers in the world. My in-laws are pretty cool too. Jealous? WELL YOU SHOULD BE.

Our car situation has been taken care of. Over the holiday we took possession of a 2008 Chevy Uplander with the help of Vance’s grandfather. So I guess our in-laws are a little better than just “cool” and drift more into the realm of FREAKIN AWESOME. We still have to make some payments and pay the insurance, which I’m sure is going to be insane, but the car is ours. We couldn’t have done this without some big financial help. My dad took the Buick is going to have it repaired and  inspected and it will be used to transport Vance to and from work.

I am way more and excited and impressed with the new car than Vance seeing as this is the first new vehicle I have ever had in my life. I’m looking for just about any excuse to get to sit in or drive in the new van and Vance is “whatev, I’ve had enough new cars that after a  couple of days they’re all the same.” I got the Buick when my mom died and I never thought I would ever be able to afford another vehicle. See? I knew marriage would pay off eventually!

So now that 2008 is over with I thought we would reflect upon all of the wonderful things that happened in the last year:

1. In May I turned 23. Only one of my friends came to my party :(

2. In July we moved into our current location. The air conditioner works!

3. Deven turned 1 the same week that hurricane Ike hit Houston, the city where most of our relations reside. Made the party interesting.

4. I completed my high school equivalency in December.

Not a whole lot happened, which is the perfect transition into my predictions for the new year. 2008 was mostly about us trying to stay afloat, and then catch up, and just in general find a comfortable spot for us as a family. Vance worked. I took care of our baby and watched him blossom into the noisey ball of snot and energy he is today. We fought a lot over money. We tried to get the hang of our rent jumping from $635 to $900 a month. We decided we love each other and our kid enough to stick it out. And now that we’ve developed some sort of system, what’s next?

I’ve decided that my news years resolution is to do something.  I languished all of last year. Though I did work some at a job that was boring and horrible, for the most part all I did was sit on my butt and was just bored to tears. Thats all I could do. I couldn’t go to school, Vance didn’t want me to work anymore because it interfered with his over time. I was beginning to blend into the pattern on the couch. It was depressing.

Towards the end of the year, things got better and  apparently set us up for a better start to the new year. Back in December I made my resolution, and though I wasn’t entirely sure just what exactly that something was going to be, I narrowed it down to three choices:

1. Start college.

2. Get a job.

3. Work on baby #2.

I know the third one is weird, but it’s something, and the idea is to have something going on, to look forward to. Lucky for me and my uterus, it’s looking like #1 is winning! I never thought I would ever be able to go to college, but from the conversations Vance and I have been having, we don’t have a whole lot of reason to believe it can’t. My dad, the teacher, is excited about helping me find financial aid and scholarships, and Vance’s grandfather has offered to help either of us with money if we decided to go to college. Because I am the way I am, I still have a hard time believing I will actually be going.  This is something I’ve been wanting to do for years, and something has always gotten in the way. I’ll believe it when I see it happening.

And even if I don’t get to go, I have determined that I will not be bored this year. I’m not going to languish anymore. Something will happen.

I made the first baby step and started the application process. It looks like I’ll be able to start in the summer, hopefully sooner. It might be a little too late for Spring though.

In other news, Deven stayed with My dad and stepmom for the first time over the weekend, and when he was returned to me he had a cold. And now I have that cold. Other than the cold, he’s doing fine. He’s adroable even though he’s teething and fussy. He’s getting into everything and he’s just driving me crazy. I took him to the Doctor on Monday and the Doctor expressed some concern that Deven isn’t really talking. Most 15 month olds can speak at least 4 words, and Deven barely has 2. He says “mama” and sometimes he says “dada” but that is very, very rare. He said he’d like to look into it further if he’s not talking by 18 months. I’m not really worried. He understands us well enough, and I think one of these days he’ll catch on to the whole talking thing when we’re least expecting it. Besides, this could mean he’ll be really good at math!

It’s really late and I need to clean up the sea of baby toys in our living room. I don’t know when I’ll post again. I’m too busy chasing after toddlers to worry about the internet.

When I really should be sleeping

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I have a lot on my mind.

I’m going to distract myself by talking about Christmas shopping and how we’ve done all of Deven’s. Over the weekend we went to Toys R Us and used the last of our merchandising credit to get Deven a couple of things, as well as something for Yalena. We got him a giant bag of blocks, the first step to Legos. I know, they’re going to be strewn about our living room, but it’s to plant the Lego seed. We want him to be prepared for that Christmas when he opens his first Star Wars Lego set.

We’ve decided to only get our kids 2 or three gifts for Christmas every year.  We don’t want them to associate Christmas with the surge of everything they could possibly want for absolutely no reason at all. We’re not Christians, we’re just caught in the inertia. Christmas, to me, should be more about spending time with your family, eating delicious food, decorations, enjoying the weather, and being thankful that we all get to be together. I want to save the big day of spoilage for their birthdays. They should be excited about the one day reserved for celebrating the day they were born, and the fact that they are here another year.

As for everyone else, just you wait. On the financial front, cutting down our cable bill and the nice chilly weather has helped us a bit. Doesn’t help us that this will be quite possibly the tightest week of our life (less than $30 to last us until next monday), but  at the end of the month if we don’t go insane it’s helps us acquire a little extra grocery money. At Vance’s work they’re about to ship out a new version of their software, and they will be making it at the same time that they are shipping it off, so what that means is crazy overtime. I won’t see my husband for a good 3 weeks, but we’ll be somewhat comfortable until things go back to normal. Also, this month his vacation gets paid out. Y’all know how many of those we’ve taken this year. Ohhh yeah, big bucks.

I really need to go to bed. Tomorrow I take the last 2 tests required for me to finally no longer be considered a failure. I am fine for the english/writing test. I even wrote a practice essay. It’s the math that I am insanely nervous about. Vance has been helping me study, and by study I mean teaching me everything, three nights a week for the last month. We missed the week of Thanksgiving, which was abig mistake. All of this week we’ve studied every night. I’ve taken all of these practice tests, and in a lot of areas there is absolutely no retention, especially in Algebra. We spent 8 hours today studying. Just sitting at the table studying. I took the last test, did horribly on it, and we both just said “fuck it”. The test will be considerably easier than what was in the study guides. If Ifail, I will bury my head in the sand and give up on ever going to college.

Please, wish my luck.

On an even sadder note, today is marks 5 years since my mom passed away. I think about this thing that I’m about to do,and how much it meant to her that I did this. I remember arguing with her, being the selfish brat that I was, telling her that if I did do this it wouldn’t be for anyone but myself, and she begged me to do this one thing for her. The in the end it really does just benefit me but it would have made her proud. So, if I nail this tomorrow, I am going to dedicate it to my mom, who I miss  a lot. Everyday.

And now I am finally going to bed.

People never cease to disappoint.

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It’s been a long time since I wrote a post. My intention for this post was for me to vent about something that happened recently, and entirely about that, but since I still do have responsibilities to my “readers” I will also quickly update on the recent holiday.

Thanksgiving was good. The turkey came out alright, and that was probably the last time I’ll prepare a whole bird. It’s too stressful. The sides were great. On Saturday we visited my dad and he rotisseried chicken that put anything I have ever roasted to shame. He also steamed fresh brocolli from his own garden and I swear to you it was heavenly. He sent us home with some. I love my dad.

Now, what I really wanted to post about.

It’s pretty typical for someone of my age to at the very least claim that they are done with dumb high school bullshit.I know I at the very least try to be civil with people and not run my mouth or gossip to people about someone who I profess to be my friend, even though as a girl, it’s not always easy. And if I did “talk shit” it’s always only to Vance, and usually only if he shares some of the same grief with me. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I am certainly not stupid. And if, let’s say, someone said something nasty and judgmental about someone that was my friend, I wouldn’t run to that friend and tell them the next day what so and so said. It wouldn’t be my place or my business. That is incredibly bitchy and would only start unnecessary bullshit.

What’s really mind blowing is that last point I made, I made based on something that happened recently to me. The bitchy one who felt the need to pass on the nasty comment is a 29 year old man. Seriously.

Let me start from the beginning. Vance got an email from a friend of his of over 10 years, and in the message was an AIM conversation this friend had with one of my closest friends. In the conversation my friend made some rather mean and judgmental comments about the fact that we borrow money from family members. She used my name, not Vance’s in this conversation. Vance came home, and has he put it, he really struggled with rather he should show it to me or not, rather it would be something I would be willing to go to war over.

He showed it to me, and at first I was. I wanted so badly to get in her face chew her up and spit her out. How dare she? She has no idea what it’s like for us.

We have a baby, Vance works overtime, we eat at home every night just about, and honestly try our hardest with what we can, and then at the end of the month sometimes we can’t make our rent or buy groceries. We have family members that have money and are willing to volunteer their surplus of funds to us so we can keep our kid fed. There’s apparently something wrong with that? We’re not proud of it, and we’re trying to fix it. You know, Vance’s car is still broken down, and mine is still illegal because we can’t gather the funds to fix them at any given time. So to have some little girl who lives in Washington state with her boyfriend who pays for everything for her, who is “so poor” yet can gather the funds for 3 plane tickets a year to come to Texas and couch surf for 2 weeks at her friend’s houses is going to pass judgment on me…just really, really hurtful.

I wanted to cry, I was so let down. I don’t have many friends, and the ones I keep close I like to believe I can trust to be empathetic at the very least, or to at least know better than to pass judgment on someone else when they have no idea what’s it’s like to be in their shoes. Especially when you’re only around that person like twice a year.

Vance and I got into a huge fight over whether or not I should confront her about it, because he still works in the same building as the 29 yr old bitch-man. He was certain that after I got done chewing her out she’d yell at the bitch for telling us, and then the bitch would confront Vance, and then Vance would have to tell him what a bitchy, calculating move that was. It’s more of his nature to let it lay dormant until something happens and he lay all of the fucked up things that person has done on the table, and deliver the big “fuck off”. Though, he think he’s tried that with me, and it doesn’t work. All it does is make it look like he’s denying responsibility for something and trying to turn it all on to the other person.

This morning I was more able to think about this with a clear mind.  I don’t just want to cut all ties with her. This was one instance of her doing this, and granted it was mean, it was a slip up lots of people make. I do plan on confronting her about it, telling her how fucked up it was, and reminding her of how STUPID, incredibly stupid it was to talk about this to the 29 yr old bitch, who HATES her, and wants everyone else to hate her too. I do want the 29 yr old bitch to go away. Vance can do what he wants with him, whether he plans on cutting ties with him, or letting him hang on a little longer is his business. If I see him, which there is a chance I will on Thursday at the Christmas party, I don’t know that I will be able to resist the urge to set his head on fire, or at the very least tell him what I think of him and all of this.

That’s that. People are terrible. And bitches.