I'm THAT Auntie!

Yep, I'm THAT Auntie.  The kind that spoils your kid and sends them home.  The one that feeds them candy and chocolate milk, lets them stay up late watching Disney movies, orders pizza, and sings Katie Perry songs with them at the top of her lungs while we make chocolate chip pancakes!

No lie... my nieces love me! The three year old calls me Auntie Num-Nums. 

For my oldest niece's 12th birthday I decided that a little kid torture would be fun!  Her mom told me she needed minutes for her cell phone.  I bought a Verizon Card and wrapped it in paper, and then cardboard, and more paper, and then some corrugate, then a couple boxes, and more layers of gift wrap. 

12 layers deep!  The outside box was huge - about  3 foot square.  Every couple of layers there was a note "not done yet", "keep going", "do you feel the love?"   LOL... all the grown ups were cracking up, and she was shooting me looks that said, "YOU ARE TOTALLY NUTS!!"  It was wonderful.

The kids and I also made her a dozen candy flowers inside a candy vase.  Everything was edible and very, very cute.  She loved it!

So after sugaring her up sufficiently I went home and left my Sister In Law to deal with the messy parenting part.  Whooo Yahhh - I love love love being an Auntie.   Of course when my SIL does the same for my kids I think, for just a brief second, that payback is a bitch.  But hey...  it's our job to spoil them.  Moms and Dad's get to do the serious stuff!

2 steps forward, 1 step back

Apparently the X's skeezy, sleazy lawyer convinced a judge that my children are in emotional distress because I'm keeping them from a father they are desperate to see.  For the record, none of them want to see him and I've got a therapist who will attest to as much under oath, who will in fact testify that it's not in the kids best interest to have anything other than very limited, and monitored access to him at this point. They aren't ready yet.

However, apparently I'll be in court in three weeks so that my X can plead his case to the judge for visitation. 

All I can do is hope that the judge recognizes how dangerous he still is and keeps my kids safety in mind.  I also hope she/he sees through all the lies and poor me victimization that the X is throwing around in an attempt to seem more sympathetic.

While I'm making wishes I'll toss one in there for control of my PTSD symptoms and anxiety during  all of this.   When we show up in court next month I want to appear calm, cool, and collected.  No tears - no outbursts, no anxiety.  I don't want to give him the pleasure of seeing me in distress.

Breathing Deeply,
Lucy

Getting What You Asked For... again.... a.k.a. Karmas a Bitch

So this is a reoccurring theme in my life lately.  I really do think, that at some point, one eventually gets what they ask for, or maybe it's just what we deserve.  Some claim that Karma steps in, or maybe it's just fruits of one's labors... both positive AND negative.  Whatever you want to call it - I've seen this rule in effect many times over the past couple  of years.

Well this time ol Karma stepped up and spanked my craptastic X like a wayward child.  BOOM BABY... back to the corner!  It seems  that ol Mr. X asked for a change of venue in an attempt to punish me financially, as well as speed up this ridiculous custody battle he's brought to my doorstep.  Well we just got our paper work from the court and court date was set...  they can squeeze us in...

are you ready?  It's good...

Wait for it....

(yes I'm giggling and rubbing my hands together in fiendish delight)

MAY 2012

I really am laughing my ass off here people.  He has to wait nearly a year to even plead his case! See this is what happens when you try to play games with the court. He thought he was SO smart.  He thought he could harass me and scare me into signing some b.s. document that gave him access to my kids.  He wants custody but refuses to get any mental health treatment, or even acknowledge that he went to jail for a DV charge.  He's still trying to convince the court that he's some kind of victim. 

So anyway - lots of legal maneuvering this past week has kept me away from my computer.  It's exhausting trying to wade through the hundreds of pages of legal  documents and respond to all of the allegations, lies, and plain ol' just crazy bullshit that he sends my way.  This last packet was over 100 pages.  My lawyer was able to get all of the documents from the SWAT team and sheriffs dept. from his arrest.  There are emails from his coworkers where they told the HR dept at his place of employment that he was threatening to kill me and himself.  This was sent to them in the first week of September.  On September 13th he brought that gun to my house and threatened to shoot me.   TWO WEEKS he planned it all out, bought the gun etc.  Premeditated - clear as day.

There is no way he can continue to claim that the events of that night were a "sudden, rash lapse of judgement with very little forethought" as he's been claiming in his depositions to family court.  I have witness statements, the receipt for the gun purchased the week before, and a transcript of the negotiators conversations with him where he admits to being a "planner" and explains he waited all week for the chance to do this.

He's an idiot... and when we get to court next year he'll find out exactly how much the court dislikes both liars, as well as abusers.  The kids and I are breathing a HUGE sigh of relief.  For the next 11 months he can just cool his jets and wait for his day in court, and the kids and I? Well we are might busy enjoying this life we've built for ourselves.  So I'm not going to spend any more time than I have to worrying about this... that's what I'm bankrupting myself by paying my lawyer for.  It's her job to deal with all this stuff.  The kids and I plan on enjoying our summer.

Karma baby... she's a lover and a hater both...I'm glad I'm on her good side this time!

Maybe the Tides Have Turned

Today was an amazing day. At work we signed a new Warehouse up in Canada to carry our product. They've agreed to a place an initial order of 26k... yes, as in thousand. That's HUGE for us. HUGE. My father has been working for over two years to get this Warehouse to carry our line. Hallaluja they can continue to pay my salary!!

When I got home after work there was a message on my phone from my lawyer. She received a notice that a nice sized sum of money I've been owed for 6 months has finally been paid out. I should have it by next week at some point. Oh My Freakin' God...thank you, thank you, thank you. I need this money in the very worst way. I have bills to pay and I owe my parents a large sum for helping the girls and I get into our rental.

I have a cracked molar that needs repair, but w/o any insurance there was no way I could afford it until now. My kids all need clothes and new shoes, badly. I need to license my pets so they are legal. Just...well life. I need to finance our life.

Without any child support bills have been piling up. I'm so excited to get a few monkeys off my back. It's such a relief!!

Day 1... of the rest of my life...

Day one of the rest of my life. I would think this would have started with a bang, a proclamation of some kind, perhaps a moment of enlightenment. No, nothing exciting, or monumental happened.

I woke up this morning and realized that my life was not over. I found out two days ago that my Ex... who we shall now forever refer to as X will be a guest of our state correctional facility for the next 14 months.

This is both the ending and the beginning I've been waiting for. It's one of the last pieces of a messy, semi-tragic, puzzle that has been my life for the past six months - well really for the past fifteen years. I expected to feel this giant weight lifted off my shoulders, but instead I just felt sad.

To this day I don't wish horrible things for him. I just want him to leave me alone. I want peace, I want to be happy, I want to feel safe. I want to feel loved and respected, I want to learn to like myself again. I want to have fun, I want to feel sexy and desired, I want someone to want me - and want them in return. I'm working on it - little things here and there.

Life, as it tends to do, has plotted against my best efforts. I asked the BFF if it's possible that I have somehow accumulated so much bad Karma in a former life that there's just no hope of something good happening for me these days. I feel cursed.

Broken appliances, cracked windshields, crazy and unstable X, eviction, injury, computer problems, cyber stalking, theft, in law problems, money problems. You name it, it has come raining down upon my shoulders this year. To end my year with a bang my pockets were picked New Years Eve... about four minutes till Midnight... I rang in the new year on the phone w/ my cell company getting my stolen cell phone shut down.

I'm desperately trying to get divorced, but X won't sign. I've been semi homeless, injured, and cyber stalked beyond belief. I just feel scrubbed raw and tossed aside like an unwanted potato, sort of pale and flavorless, easily discarded.

And with all that? I know that things can only get better...right? I mean really, can they get much worse? Should I even tempt fate - that cruel bitch - and ask that question? I lay in bed last night thinking, which I do a lot. I rarely sleep, and when I do I have the most horrible nightmares. I was thinking of all the ways my life could be worse: cancer, unemployment, pregnancy, death in the family... and oddly that made me feel better.

So I woke up today and realized that my life is not over. It's not tidy. It's certainly not fun. But I'll get up, shave my legs, put on a pair of heels that make me feel fierce and face my day with as much cheerfulness as I can muster.

It's my little F-You to Karma...