Tuesday-Thursday, July 17-19, 2012

Don't you just love Tuesday? It's so nice that it's not Monday!!!

I mentioned yesterday that I contacted the realtor when I noticed that the condo listed on Craigslist for $35K was listed on the realtor's page for $67K. The realtor checked it out on CL and sure enough, the CL listing is a SCAM! I haven't figured out what the scam is. Anyway, we nixed it because the HOA fees per month are $489! It covers water/trash and maintenance (building and lawn care). There is no back yard, no work out room, no club room, etc. Think we'll pass.

Ken was up early this morning, starting over. He went to his MHMR meeting, came home for lunch, and then to Texas Workforce Commission where he spoke with a counselor and then to Eddie about getting into the WIA program. He's not letting what happened yesterday slow him down. He got a couple of referrals at Texas Workforce and already has an interview set up for Friday. After TWC he went by the Social Security Office to let them know about the job situation so they won't count it against his SS and take money away. He's staying positive about this, which is good and somewhat different from what I expected. I thought it would crush him - but I think the fact that he discovered he CAN still do the job overcame his disappointment about the way his employment was handled. That and the fact that he certainly did not need to be in a situation where he was put in the middle of the owner and his wife, and I think was relieved when he left.

So, what else? Not much. I'm a little concerned about The Ladder Alliance taking over my life. Several emails have come out regarding another Saturday meeting. I haven't responded. I'm going to have to figure out a NICE way to let them know I will not be giving up Saturdays. This part-time situation has already taken all 5 days per week and most of my time each day, at least for about 7 weeks. I won't do that again, and in the interim I will not be attending Saturday meetings.

We took advantage of Wednesday by having a "resting" day...didn't do much of anything. I cleaned the kitchen, made sausage, eggs and biscuits for breakfast, and that's about the extent of what got done. We had Sonic burgers for lunch, and then Ken went to Wing Stop to pick up dinner! But it's ok, we had budgeted for meals out for this week. Just means that next week we have to cook most of the week.

My personal exciting event of the week so far has been that I was contacted by a lady in Louisiana who saw family research work I have done that is posted on Ancestry.com. Turns out she is a distant paternal relative and quite connected to our roots in Mississippi. It has been fun to correspond with her because she has lots of information PLUS pictures, and has been sharing same. It's been exciting to be able to put faces with the names I've "known" thru my many years of research (since 1981).

Made final payment on a bill this week -- yippee! We're still on the Dave Ramsey plan, and it has basically worked (we had to make the plan for 5 years). Still have a couple of creditors who would not work with us when I started making financial arrangements in 2009. Everybody else is now paid off; and they could have been, too, if they had agreed to terms. Instead they just keep hounding us about payment. This week I will start trying to make agreements with them again to see if we can't get these off our backs as well. I can't think too much about it because if I do I'll get too upset with K. All of this is still from the mess made when he decided to "check out" in 2009 and left me holding the bag for everything. No way could one income cover what was covered previously by two incomes. Grr...

Life here can be pretty dull -- so getting excited over arrival of Shark floor steamer mop machine counts as a highlight of the day! I ordered a Eureka cordless sweeper (came today - Thursday) and a Shark floor steamer (arrived yesterday) because last week I got so down in my back and hips after once again sponge mopping this entire place. I'm anxious to see if the steamer works - friends have told me they love theirs. I hope I do, because cleaning floors is a constant around this house with all the fur critters.

I made it to Office Depot today and got copies made of all the family documentation I found in Parker County last week. Brought all that home, made three piles of it (one for me), and will get all mailed out tomorrow to Mary P. and Marsha G. Then we'll see if they can get into Daughters of the Republic of Texas with it!

Nothing much else...we topped off the night by going to get a snow cone. Our favorite place was closed already for the night so we had to go to our second choice. We took Luci with us (she begs to go), and we tried sitting at the picnic table at the snow cone place but there were ants on the table and seats and one got on Luci and she was miserable. I held her while we sat out there and then we decided we were all getting eat up by them or possibly mosquitoes so got in the car instead.

I go for FWISD substitute teacher orientation tomorrow, so have to be up early. Don't know exactly how I'm going to work that out, but know that I'm going to -- I say that because orientation is tomorrow and then training is on August 3. I will be teaching for TLA on August 3. Hmmm...now what can I do. I need to find a substitute teacher for my class while I go to substitute teacher training for FWISD.

That's it for now. Going to bed and hope this is a better night than last night. Luci had a really rough time last night, cried from about 12:30 to 2...tummy hurt, I think, and then she was hungry. I fed her in bed, rocking her a bit, then feeding her a bit. She finally settled down and we were ALL glad - even Bennie and Maggie!

Get some sleep - hugs to all. If God's willing we shall rise again tomorrow.