Bad Week

Well let’s see.  Monday was ok I guess.  Tuesday wasn’t that great.  Well Monday was spent with me putting the new serpentine belt back on my engine because it slipped off again.  Tuesday it died though.  Not sure what happend but it started sounding and smoking like a tractor trailer and died completely about three hundred yards from the house.  A nice man named Franklin Cochran stopped and towed me to the house.  Wednesday we went car shopping and Kat got one in her name for ten grand.  That was with 1000 down so our savings account is depleated to just over 60 dollars.  Thursday we found out the insurance is going to be about 200 dollars a month.  Friday we took 2.0 to the hospital with bloody poopie.  The doctors said it was a food dye which we figured was spaghetti-o’s once the second diaper came out orange.  The first one being blood red still doesn’t convince me even after they checked for hemoglobin.  Today we went to the zoo and that’s the first time anything’s worked out this week.  So it must be getting better.  I’ll keep you posted so if things get better or worse you’ll know.

More Stress

Let’s see mother’s day has come and gone with a high amount of stress and tension, yesterday there was an elevated level of stress with us worrying about Rui’s family with the earthquake, today we ran out of money and tomorrow we’ll have to wait and see what happens.  I guess it could always get worse but does it ever get better?  The good news is that with rising gas prices over the summer Kat will be able to drive into work and hopefully convince her bosses to give her a gas allowance so we can atleast afford some of it without having to rely on my parent’s fuel card and having them foot the bill.  I’m not the begging type so things are in really bad shape when I ask for help.  Oooh now that I think about it the annual trip to North Carolina is not this weekend but the next and we get to figure out how to pay for it.  Looks like I may have to resort to begging after all.  Wish me luck.

P.S. I put this under the politics category because the rising gas prices are directly corrolated to bad politics. 

I Was Wrong

I thought on my last post that the worst was over.  I was quite mistaken.  Later that very same day some bone head rear ended us on 275 down in Tampa.  The very next day Becky passed away.  The day after that we spent on the road headed home.  The next day we went to the viewing and finally on Easter Sunday we had the funeral.  Things are calming down and settling back into the routine but things are still chaotic.  Since I have a hard time managing stress I can’t quite cope with all that’s happened and am well on my way to having a nervous break down.  Yesterday I had an anxiety attack so bad I though I was having a heart attack which didn’t exactly help matters.  Things are slowing down so It’ll all be okie dokie I just need to find time to get back to my doctor and see what she has to think about all this and if she can offer any suggestions.  I doubt she can but it’s worth a shot.

More Red Tape

It’s not secret that I despise America.  Slowly our civil liberties are being stripped away while the economy slips into decay as the ever consuming rift dividing poverty and wealth threatens to engulf the nation as it slips into a caste system.  To add insult to injury the government abandons those who truly need help.  My daughters will be out of health insurance on December 31 because the government has turned their back.  We officially make too much money to get government assistance of any kind and yet are not able to even put gas in our car or food on our table much less talk about doctors visits.  The worst part of it all is that it is a four dollar difference.  By the government standards we are four dollars above the poverty level so we can afford to eat cake and drink wine.  Quite the contrary.  Tonight for dinner we’re having left over ham that someone donated to us over Christmas.  I don’t know what we’re going to do when it’s finished.  All we have left is a bag of chicken wings so skimpy that it will last just one meal between all of us.  I have no way to feed my family and no one will help.  Looking for a job is out of the question because in order to afford fuel, car insurance, and daycare I’d have to be making atleast $20,000 annually and there are no jobs in Georgia that will pay that much starting.  We will finally be caught up on the mortgage just in time to get another bill from them and start the new year in the same shape in which we left the old; broken and battered and generally worse for wear and looking for help which will never be given.  We have been abandoned by the one entity that is supposed to protect us and nurture us as we grow and thrive while we instead wilt and suffer.  What makes it so horrible is that we’re not the only family with this problem.  You look all over the nation and millions are in the same position we’re in.  My only true wish is that I had the money to leave before it gets worse, but alas what money we do save gets sucked away on fuel expenses so we can get enough money to scrape by.  We’ve already decided that no matter how much money we get back on a tax refund it’s already spent on something to try and make life bearable.  My current thought is to get the roof replaced.  Maybe if roofing tiles are cheap enough I can do it a bit at a time.  But then again that would entail that I actually have the time to do it and the money for the tiles.  I guess I’ll look into it though just in case.  Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to wallow in self pity and will be out for the rest of the day.

Wrong Way

We just git back from a “vacation” and I couldn’t be more glad to be home. We all went to Tampa to go to the beach and watch my sister get married (CONGRATS) and frankly I’m glad it’s over. The whole thing was a lot more stress then it needed to be but in the end she got what she wanted and that was to get hitched on the beach. Driving over 750 miles and cooking pretty constantly may seem like a break from the ordinary (which it was and it was nice) but when you add in sleeping in a little bitty bed in an itty bitty room with the entire family of five it gets kinda hectic. On the plus side we got some great pictures which are up on the Picassa page (link to come) and got to spend lots of time with the girls. Also did I mention that the girls were in the wedding? 1.1 was the ring bearer and pulled 2.0 in a little decorated wagon while we tried to get her to throw out some flowers. Alas she didn’t quite get the concept but atleast she didn’t try and climb out this time. Anyway it’s almost time for me to get 1.1 from school and pickup the exchange student. I also have my trackercam online. I’ll put the link to that up when Kat gets done with the page.  Oh and by the way the title comes from when we got turned around in Ybor City and started going up an exit ramp.  Oops.  They really need to put better signs down there.

Work, School and Caffeine

Well it’s safe to say that life comes at you fast. Over the course of this weekend I had a small vacation, went an entire day without spending any money, built a bed and found a job. I’m sitting up at Kat’s work waiting for one of the sales guys to get in to take me to a new job right down the street. That’s all fine and dandy except for the fact that we still have only one car and 1.1 starts school today thirty miles away so Kat’s driving all that way back down there to drop her off with 2.0 sleepily in tow. The good news is that after a while we should have enough money to start traveling again. Not sure yet though if the next trip will be Britain or Prague. Anyway I digress to my usual ramblings and complaints of the general public. Now we all know that people do stupid things but there are some things that are not only stupid but defy logic, common sense and possibly child negligence laws. One such event happened yesterday when we noticed a four year old drinking coke out of a baby bottle which was intended for a little girl who appeared to be slightly older then 2.0 so just over a year. Now if a baby has coke in their bottle it will definitely rot their teeth before they grow in so that defies all three of the conventions I mentioned earlier. To top it off we noticed the mother drinking coke out of a baby bottle as well. Safe to say that some people shouldn’t breed and if they do by choice or mistake then they shouldn’t be allowed to raise the poor things. There’s plenty of good parents out there who can’t have children but want them and if they were allowed to have the children born to the bad parents then everyone can be happy and well educated.

Early Morning

It’s already starting out to be a shit day. It’s 5:09 am and I’ve already been up for two hours listening to two children fuss. Kat’s aunt had to go to Florida for a funeral which is fine I have no problem with helping with that but when the flight leaves 7:06 in the morning and you have to be at Hartsfield at least two hours before your flight leaves to clear security and all it’s a bit of a problem or everybody else that’s not traveling. I had to get up at 3 am to get both of the girls up and drive all the way to Atlanta and sit in the bad terminal traffic to drop her off. At current we’re sitting up at Kat’s work listening to the two children bicker and beg for more pictures to color and do everything possible not to go back to sleep. I think it’s a safe assumption that it’s going to be a very long day.

The American Dream

So when exactly did the American dream go from being about having a good job with good pay and being able to come home to a spouse, kids and a nice warm meal fit for a king but at the cost for a pauper? It seems like these days the American dream has morphed into a menagerie of disappointments and let downs beginning with working over forty hours a week to barely be able to afford gas to get to work to work the over forty hours with a side of reduced retirement prospects and the slow and eventual abolition of social security meaning that when Generation X gets old they’ll turn into Generation Octogenarian-seeks-third-full-time-job-to-pay-gas-to-work-first-two-jobs! Still it is America so I guess that stands for something, I just don’t quite know what yet. As I write this I’m looking for work and trying to figure out where I’m going to get the money to fix one of the four dead cars we have so I can actually get to it and be able to afford for Kat to get to her job during the day. If anyone knows of any needed freelance work (particularly in writing or editing but I’ll do assassinations too if they have good vision and dental coverage) then feel free to drop a line at my email link somewhere on the page. In the mean time remember to work hard, Uncle Sam needs your money to support his habit; after all it’s not easy trying to scam billions of hard working tax payers out of their money.

Update

Well it seems to have saved my last post so hopefully all the bugs are worked out of the system. It’s been a while since I can say that I’ve had a good post and it’s nice to be able to say it again. Yesterday we took the girls to the Zoo to see the baby panda. 1.1 thought it was a blast and loved it. She wanted us to buy her a stuffed panda since she couldn’t have the real thing (only she forgot she already has one somewhere in her room waiting to be excavated) and 2.0 had fun getting outdoors for the first time in a bit. I’ve started tinkering with Bryce again and am trying to figure out how to make money off of it. I also going to start painting again soon. Let me know if you have any requests.