Just Simply Holly

I’ve learned a huge lesson in the past 24 hours! NEVER look at pictures or videos of your kids when you need to be with them but can’t!

I have to be honest here, I’ve spent the bulk of the last 16 hours wishing I could turn time back! I know it won’t change anything or make anything better, but I wish I could turn time back and undo some of the wrongs that I’ve done! Somewhere along the line I made a major mistake and it’s coming back to bite me in the butt right now!

But honestly, I wish I could turn time back to when our lives were a little more simple and a LOT less angry! I wish I could have my kids be the silly, goofy, happy go lucky toddlers again who used to run around the house with a towel tied around their necks pretending they were a super hero! I wish I could turn time back to when kissing a booboo made everything all better and dried up their tears!

But I can’t do that, and if I’m honest with myself, I honestly don’t think I’d want to, even if I could! It’s time for them to learn about life on their own, they need to spread their wings and learn just exactly who they are. And we all need to realize that I’m not always going to be there to “rescue” them when they’re in trouble, sometimes they’ll have to fix things on their own.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to run out to where they are right now and fix it myself, because I do! I’m fighting every ounce of my being right now to pull things together so that I can go out there and take care of things. I’m hurting in a way that I have never hurt before, and it’s very difficult! But I know that it’s just because my pessimistic side is strongest right now, and I’m assuming the worst will happen, when it more than likely won’t. But it’s probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced as a parent, and I DON’T LIKE IT!!

Between the puppy deciding that 4:25 AM was a good time to wake up and getting my son up and around for a program that he’s going to this week the morning was rough. But when you add the fact that we’re still having massive internet problems it makes things even rougher! This morning between 5:00 and 6:00 our internet worked for a total of about 15 minutes, if that. My husband once again called tech support, they walked him through a couple of different things that the tech support guy last night didn’t have him do, and it seems to have done the trick. But the guy this morning restated what the one last night said. There is something wrong with our line, our speed has maxed out at 2/3 of what it’s supposed to be and averages about half of the max speed they registered. They apologized for the fact that Monday is the earliest they can get a technician out here, but said that when he comes on Monday they are going to have him run a deidcated line directly to the phone jack that the modem is plugged into.

We’ve been dealing with problems with our DSL since the day we moved in here, it’s been one problem after another! If I had the option to go elsewhere for my internet service, I’d do it in a heartbeat! But out here in the sticks, my only other option would be to go with Satellite internet and the starting costs are just too high considering that it’s not known to be the most stable internet. Yes, sometimes I do think anyting would be better than what we have, but it’s another one of those things where you just cannot justify the extreme expense of the initial set up!

I feel bad for the kids though! They’re both on their Spring Break this week and with everything that has happened it hasn’t been the best of vacations for them! The week started off with my having a broken tooth and my son having the worst cold I think he’s ever had in his life and now mid week we’re having strangers on the property and major internet problems. At this rate I can see myself checking into drug rehabilitation in the near future! Hopefully things will chill out for the rest of the week and we can just enjoy our time!

The kids and I had a TOTALLY awesome day! My hubby got called into work this morning and worked until 10:30 tonight, so it was just me, the kids and the dogs today. We had an amazing day with almost no arguments! The kids decided that they wanted to get some fresh air and since it was sunny they went outside. I looked out the slider door to see where they were at and managed to catch them on the trampoline jumping and laughing, so I decided to try and sneak some pictures of them. I was able to snap a few pictures before they caught me, once they seen what I was doing it became a “free for all” to see who could do the coolest “trick” for me to take a picture of. In

After the first set of photos were taken we came inside to upload them to the computer and see how they turned out. Some of them were awesome, some managed to capture the funniest captions on the kids’ faces and some made us laugh until we were crying. After looking through the first set of pictures, the kids wanted to go back out so that I could take some more, they wanted to do cooler tricks and make funnier faces. They ended up going in and out of the house several times and in all I ended up taking over 100 pictures of them, most of them being “action” shots where they were in mid air or doing a flip or something.

When they had had enough of the cold weather (although it was sunny, it was only 35 degrees tops today), they came in and we made some hot cocoa and looked through all of the pictures again. We made some dinner, did the dishes and chilled out for the rest of the evening.

Out of the middle of nowhere I lost my internet connection, I still was connected to the network betwee the 3 computers, but I had no internet. The other three computers all had internet, but not mine. I tried restarting my computer thinking tat would help, but it didn’t. I tried to do a system restore on the computer to back it up a day, but for some reason it wouldn’t do the restore. I tried restarting the modem, that didn’t work. By the time my husband got home from work I was almost in freak out stage. I had no idea what was going on or what to do about it, and I’ve never not been able to diagnose and/or fix computer problems.

Finally we got the bright idea to just plug my computer directly into the modem and amazingly, for the first time in a few hours, I had an internet connection. That was good news, but it was also bad news because it meant that our ever so faithful router was probably taking a dump on us, and right now we just cannot afford to replace it. So hubby got to “tinkering” with things (since that’s what he’s best at). After playing the “Old Switcheroo” with some of the wires and powering the router off for a while, we seem to have the problem fixed. But the reality is that we’re going to have to replace our router ASAP! It’s OLD, and by old I mean that it is easily 6 years old, and I’m not exactly sure what the life span of a wired router is.

I did make use of my time without internet, in between freaking out and yelling…LOL! I took some of the pictures of the kids that I shot today and put them to music. So, for your viewing pleasure……

I love my hubby, I really do! He’s a great man who really does put up with my many different sides and mood swings! Take this morning, for instance. He decided to be nice and let me sleep in since he “Oh so rudely” woke me up shortly after 5:00 AM yesterday morning. Now, normally this would be a VERY nice thing! But this morning he failed to realize that some how one of the dogs had managed to get my glasses off my desk and that all three of them were using my glasses as their newest chew toy.

So, whether I want to or not, I have no choice but to purchase new glasses ASAP! I can’t afford them right now, but hopefully can get them at some point in the next week. Fortunately I do still have my last pair and can wear them for driving and stuff. But the prescription is very different from those and my newest ones, so I foresee MAJOR headaches until I can replace them.

On top of waking up to finding the dogs chewing on my glasses I also discovered that my computer would not start. We still haven’t figured out what the problem was, it took 5 tries before it finally did start. So to say the least, it wasn’t the best of mornings at all. I have a horrible headache and a TON of homework to do and all I want to do is take a nap…LOL!

The past couple of days have just been SOOOOOOOOOOO stressed out! The migraine I had Thursday really messed me up and just threw my whole week off, it also caused me to miss two classes, which REALLY stinks!

Yesterday my plan was to get things around to start getting our income taxes ready. No, I can’t quite do them yet because I’m waiting on some 1099’s as well as the statements for hubby and I from school. But with what I had, and guesstimating the numbers from the things I’m waiting on, it looks like we’re not going to be getting the refund we were hoping for this year.

At one point yesterday I was on a website with a flashing ad for Vegas hotel rates and all I could think about was just running away from everything that was stressing me out! But, I know things will be OK, they might not be what we hoped they would, but I have no doubt we’ll be fine! Or at least they will be if I stop playing on the puter and get my homework done…LOL

WOW, I’m still sitting here thinking that some of the things that happened yesterday really couldn’t have happened!  I’ll give you the details of my Tuesday, but be warned, it will be LONG!

I had class yesterday morning at 8:00 AM.  Now, I knew that when I enrolled in this class that it was going to be a close call making it to class some days.  But I worked things out so that rather than taking my daughter to her bus stop, waiting for the bus, then waiting for the bus to leave after she has gotten on it, like I normally do, I instead leave when the bus is the next “vehicle” from the driveway that I wait in.  This allows me plenty of time to get over to the main road and hop on the turnpike.  As much as I dislike having to pay to drive on a road, taking the turnpike to school in the mornings cuts about 20 minutes off the drive, so in my opinion it’s worth the 50 cents it costs. Read more…

This time of year is difficult in many ways.  December is the anniversary of my fathers death, which I still struggle with many years later.  I also am already suffering from my “winter blues”, even though it’s just a few days into December.  Trying to deal with my family adds even more stress to my life this time of the year, and my sister, in particular, is really pushing her limits with me.

We’re in a very difficult spot financially right now, with no hope for it letting up any time soon.  Bills are piling up and the fridge is almost bare.  So my thoughts are on getting the bills paid as soon as possible and getting some food in the fridge, then, if there is anything left, we’ll worry about Christmas.  About a month ago my sister made mention that the six of us kids were going to go in on one big gift for my mom and step dad that would be their Christmas present and their gift for their 70th birthdays, which are just 4 days apart.  She wanted to know if I would be able to go in on this, and I told her that it did not look like I would be able to, but that if it changed, I would let her know.  She called me last night giving me details for the party, asking if I could bring a veggie tray, and reminding me that my husband would not be allowed to attend since my step father was going to be there.  I said no problem to the veggie tray and told her that we had already planned on the fact that my hubby wouldn’t be able to attend and that it wasn’t a problem.  She then asked again about my going in on the gift, of which my share would be more than $150.  As nicely as I could, I explained to her that we were so low on food that I had to make noodles from scratch for dinner that night, to which she said “Oh my God, I wish I had as much free time as you do so that I could cook like that, but are you sure you won’t be able to pitch in, because I don’t want you to be upset because your name is not on the card”.  It took ever ounce of energy for me to keep my calm enough to be able to tell her know and finish the call.  She just has no clue as to what it is like to need, nor do I think she ever will.

So tonight I sit here, wondering what is in store for myself and my family.  I know that we will make it through this difficult time, we always do.  But right now, it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

The water problems that started yesterday morning are far from over!  We had water early last night, but by bed time we were having problems again.  We got it “temporarily” fixed, enough to do showers, but that was it.  We ran over to the landlords house and grabbed 2 five gallon buckets and a five gallon jug of water so that we could at least use one toilet and have water for cooking and coffee.

Hubby headed off to work this morning and before he left he told me that I could use the water, to just be careful.  (Meaning the water from the faucets)  But I was scared that I’d do something and end up burning up another water pump, so I used the water out of the buckets and jugs instead.  When he got home this afternoon he checked everything, ran the water in 2 faucets for what seemed to be an hour, and it seemed to be working good, so we went ahead and started some laundry and stuff.   That lasted a couple of hours and we were back to no water again, so he headed back down to the crawl space, shut the pump off for a few minutes, turned it back on and everything was OK again.

He called the landlord to let him know what was going on and he said he’d be over later.  When he showed up he came with 3 cases of water and 3 one gallon jugs so that we would have plenty of water to drink and cook with.  He also brought a truck with 350 gallons of water in a tank.  They hooked it up so that the pump would draw water from the tank rather than the well and so far, things are running OK.  We don’t have but maybe 2/3 of the pressure we had, but it’s definitely better than nothing and works fine for showers and laundry.

The landlord is going to get the papers from the county to find out 100% for sure where the well is on the property.  Then he is going to bring someone over to see what needs to be done, whether it be a new point put in or a deeper well drilled.  So, although we currently don’t have a permanent solution, we do at least have a temporary one and we do have running water in the house.

It’s frustrating though!  I see what my hubby is going through knowing that he’s not working the hours he was and the fact that they’ve talked about a layoff.  Add to that the stress and frustration of the water situation and he’s not in good shape!  I was talking to my best friend on the phone tonight and told her that he’s getting to the point that it worries me, that he’s almost to the point of being so depressed and stressed that he belongs in a hospital.  So please, keep him in your thoughts, prayers, etc, because I am truly worried about him and the effect that all of this is having on him!

We live out in the country.  Not way, way out, but far enough outside of town that we have well water.  We’re fortunate enough that even though it does have a sulfur problem, it’s only in smell and not in color.  This morning I woke up and when I turned on the kitchen faucet to get water to make coffee I discovered that there was no water.  I had some water left in a jug, so I used that to make coffee.  My hubby got dressed and headed down to the crawl space to see if something was going on with the water pump and discovered that the pump itself was very hot.  He unplugged it to give it some time to cool down, hoping that would “fix” the problem, and came back upstairs.

He went back down to the crawl space about half an hour later and plugged the pump back in, but it was obvious that there was something wrong, as a matter of fact, the pump was completely tied up.  He spent the entire day working on trying to get the water running again, we even replaced the pump with a brand spanking new one.  At first we thought it was fixed, we had water and more water pressure than we had since we moved in here.  But that didn’t last long, about an hour later we had no water at all, so back down to the crawl space he went.  Sure enough, the new pump was not holding pressure.  He turned the pump off and primed it again and the pressure came back up.  We told the kids to take their showers so he could see what kind of effect it would have on the pump, two showers drained the pressure completely out of the pump.  So he turned it off again and primed it again, and the pressure came back up where it should be.

This evening he walked to the neighbors closest to us, as well as the ones next to them, to ask them if they were having any problems with the water.  The ones directly next to us haven’t had any problems, but the ones on the other side of them have been having problems similar to ours.  After talking to them my husband learned that there are several in the area that have been having water problems and that more than likely it is because the water table has dropped too low to accommodate the people that live out here now.  There is a chance that we may have no other choice but to drill a deeper well, but there is also talk that city water is going to come to our road in the spring.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do at this point.  Fortunately it’s not our name on the deed to the property yet, so it’s not going to be a major expense that comes out of our pocket.  But I also know that if a solution can’t be had fairly quickly, we’ll have no choice but to move.  If my hubby were to have to work out of town for a week right now, I’d really be screwed because I have no idea how to do stuff like this!

I’ve told my husband more than once that if he wanted to keep the lawnmower on the back patio, rather than in the shed, he needed to fix or replace the outdoor lighting that hasn’t worked since we moved in here. But did he listen? NOOOOOO And what happened? When he went to put stuff in the burn barrel he realized that the lawnmower is gone. Do men ever listen?