THEN THERE WAS ONE...

So I have been working at this ice rink and it is the first six months we only opened in September. Already we are losing people at a really fast clip. First the Figure Skating Director quits, too much stress. Then the bookkeeper quits, too much stress. Now my boss, and may I say a great boss, she is fantastic, well she is quitting too. It is convoluted and weird and too hard to explain but she also said the GM is probably going too so that leaves me in the office and I hate it. I like my job but part of the fun was working with my friend and now she will be gone. I just want to cry, who knows maybe they will fire me too and have a clean slate. I am depressed and sad and I have to go to work. This is too much!

WHEREVER YOU GO THERE YOU ARE.....IN HELL

It seems to me that I use this as a release for all the stress I am feeling. I really don't have anyone to talk to so I guess that this is better than freaking out completley and going postal on the people in my life. I feel like I have so many troubles that if I talk about them all all I would do is complain. So I don't say too much because I feel like people must be tired of hearing about how horrible it is in my life. But it really doesn't get much better. You know how some say "it can't possibly get any worse" well they are wrong, of course it can. It can always get worse. There are days when it feel like I am a blind person walking through a landmine infested field - it doesn't matter where I step something blows up only I have to keep walking and keep on hitting the landmines every day. This week my phone bill is past due, my electric bill is past due and I still have to pay February mortgage. My furnace broke down the other day and that had to be repaired, it took my entire paycheck and trust me I had plans to pay bills and get food with that. Every time I plan ahead I get screwed. I am so discouraged by life and I am depressed and really feel like I am in Hell.

How much more can a person take?

Seriously, I really don't know how much a person is able to take without just losing it completely. My husband lost his job just before Christmas, nice huh? Thirteen years with the same company and then it's "sorry pal see you later." He is searching for work but as a plumber work right now is slow and that is on a good day. Construction has grinded to a halt around here and when he called the union hall he was told that he is number 129 on the bench, that means there are 128 guys to go before him. We blew through what little savings we did have and now we are on unemployment which pays you about one third of your actual salary which at our house is just about enough to pay the mortgage and that is it. No car payments, no utilities, no insurance, no food , no gas in the car, no nothing. There are days when I just don't even want to get up in the morning, and not to mention the five boys who depend on us for everything they need. It makes you feel like the worst parent in the world to not even be able to get them
Christmas presents or birthday presents. If it hadn't been for a girlfriend of mine none of them would have had anything under the tree. And then how do you think my husband feels about that? He is so bummed out about all of this, he wants to provide for all of us but he only knows one thing and he can't do it. We have tons of bills and we can't pay them and this isn't like we have charged up a fortune of unnecessary things on a charge card and can't pay them this is we can't even pay the electric bill or the gas bill or the phone bill. We don't even have charge cards any more, we learned that lesson a long time ago. So hubby and I fight all of the time and we never see each other because he is out trying to find work during the day and I am working at night. It doesn't seem right that it should be this hard, we have been married almost twenty years, you would think that by now things would be a little easier by now. That we would be better at life, but we are still messing things up and I don't know but I feel guilty because I haven't figured out how to do life better. He keeps telling me that we need to find a solution, to find something that we can do that will bring us some money, something to get him out of plumbing. He keeps looking at me like why haven't I figured it out by now. And I keep waiting for him to tell me what it is that he really wants to do. I don't have any ideas, I have a hard enough time getting all the kids to do their schoolwork/homeschooling them, trying to keep the house clean, clothes washed, kids on their chores and going to work myself. How am I supposed to come up with an idea that will be a moneymaker, enough to get him out of plumbing and support our family? I want someone to tell me what to do, how to make it happen. I just don't think I can take any more of this shit. And did I mention how much I hate having him around all crabby and mean because he isn't working, he is on my last nerve. I feel like we don't even like each other any more, and I am running out of "give a damn" when it comes to him. He has said he wishes he could leave and sometimes I wish he would. Life sucks in just about every way imaginable, I never thought it would be like this. I never thought I wouldn't even like my hubby, we have been best friends for so long but I don't want to talk to him I don't want to be around him, it is just ugly.

New Job, New Attitude?

Well maybe not the attitude. But a new job. I am working at the Leafs Ice Centre in West Dundee. I work in the office, it is a nice job. I like my boss Paige she is easy to work for and she is one of those women who give you lots of kudos when you do good work which makes a person feel good. As well as a little awkward, I am not used to the compliments and I always feel like blushing a little. Anyway the job is fairly easy, answering phones, data entry, general office work. Things have changed in the office world since I was in it last, the copier is a mystery to me - where is the super large Xerox that sounds like it might take off? And of course there is the whole computer thing. I have the data entry thing down that is a no brainer but every once in a while she will ask me if I know how to format something in a word document or make a spread sheet.... I am now kicking myself for not taking computers in high school. I remember thinking " what am I going to need that for?" as I walked down the hall to use the mimeograph machine for a teacher. Now I see. It seems that everyone can do this, the little teenagers who come to work can do these things and I, well, I figured out the internet, blogging and how to make a birthday card with the software that came with the home computer I bought. I guess there are so many more things you can do with a computer. Perhaps I need to investigate this a little more. The only problem with working is I am gone almost every night. I leave the house around four and I don't get home till ten or so. I miss being with the kids a little. I liked bedtime, baths and stories and cuddling. I don't get to eat dinner with the family and I am sure they are eating whenever they want and wherever they want as evidenced by the plethora of plates and glasses in the family room when I get home. Plus there is the fact that I come home and the kids are still up and my husband is in bed. Now I realize he has to get up early but I get up with him every day and I homeschool the kids all day and make dinner that I never get to eat and work for 4-5 hours and come home and clean up and I still have to be the one who scoots them upstairs! I am having a bit of trouble with this. I wish he would just put the littles to bed and then I will deal with the older ones but almost every time I walk in baby is sleeping on the floor and Jake is sleeping on the chair or the couch. Oh well at least the money is helping out a bit. I will have to work out the other stuff.

Sometimes I just want to give up

There are days when I just want to pack it in and say the heck with it all. My kids drive me crazy, we have no money to pay the bills, and my hubby and I have a relationship that could seriously use improvement. It would be so much easier to just chuck it and be done with it. I wish I could but with five boys and a hubby and a house and a job it isn't possible. Maybe if I just got rid of the dog, I really don't like having a dog. They are so much more work than I ever thought and I really don't enjoy anything about taking care of them. Of course I can say that about my own children some days. I guess I am just in a really bad mood. I need something to cheer me up.

Easter

Well it is almost Easter, our family is going to my Mom's and wonder of wonders we are actually having family. My two cousins and their spouses are both coming, this should be different and fun. I don't think we have had a family type of holiday since I was little. I don't count the ones we celebrated with my husband's family because they were more like hell than a holiday, my mother-in-law is the devil.

There has been something going on with me and my emotions. I know what it is of course, my daughter's birthday is coming up. Actually it falls on Easter this year, two days after my second son's birthday. I feel so sad and like crying all the time, I still miss her every day and no one understands. No one even remembers her at all. I guess it is normal for other people to forget her, it doesn't affect their life so why should they remember her? But my husband doesn't remember her birthday either. He doesn't talk about her or anything. My Mom doesn't my Sister, no one. It sucks, I just still wish she was here.

IT IS ALMOST SPRING

Well tomorrow is officially the first day of spring, my crocus are blooming and some of the other things are poking through. Time for new beginnings. I wish I could have a do over sometimes, start new and bloom all pretty like the flowers get to. I have had a hard time with my second son today, he is in a really bad mood and is fighting me on the schoolwork , failed his math test and then tried to refuse to do the make up work. Screamed at me and threw a fit, I told him he was grounded and he said "I don't care" and then he said a few other things, which I wont repeat so i grounded him for another day and then another. He is in his room now and he is still crabby. So am I for that matter, I feel like he just didn't even care that he was speaking to me that way. I am still pretty upset by this and I want to cry. And I want to run and I want to scream and I feel like hitting something, hitting it really hard.