I’m Beautiful Like Me.

The Spirit of Christmas is upon me. Mostly, it’s credit to the group of wonderful women I knit with on Tuesdays. Some other nice financial things have happened as well.

One of the ladies I knit with asked that I call her about 10 days ago and asked if she could help us out with groceries through her church. I thanked her but told her I’d prefer they help someone else who really needs it. She conspired with another of the ladies I knit with and mailed us a $50 gift card for the local grocer. The truth is, I really don’t need grocery money - the government has helped us with that the past several months. However, I can buy diapers and toilet paper with this gift card, so it is incredibly helpful.

When we moved in here, we had to pay a huge deposit to turn on our electricity. It was returned to us via our credited bill. That was incredibly helpful! Work has been slightly busier and I’ve gotten better sections and tips lately, too. Further, Husband has made a little money with his slowly-building business and I’ve helped my mom out some, too and will be helping her out again this week.

I’m still pinching every penny. Every little bit helps.

That said, I did brave shopping yesterday. We needed some buns to go with dinner and while out, I made some very small purchases for the kids. I bought the boy a small, squishy football and got the girl a shirt and some Pokémon cards.

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve been spending some time volunteering at The Healing Place. We didn’t make it out there yesterday, though. Frankly, I’m exhausted! I’ve been working more and this week is going to be a long one: I work Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at my job, helping mom out on Tuesday and maybe even Wednesday morning before my job, and spending the better part of the day at The Healing Place on Christmas Day. We are going out to mom’s on Sunday (the 28th) to do our family Christmas, complete with my brother and his two girls. Big Rob has been helping mom out on her farm a lot of Sundays and I conspired with him yesterday to get my Christmas box out after all. I will hook up with him at some point and surprise the kids with the decorations on Christmas eve.

The big surprise for them, especially Joy, is that when they get up on Christmas morning and find presents under it! I really hadn’t anticipated being able to have gifts, so this is just as fun for me, being able to surprise the both of them. I am really looking forward to it.

Lastly, if you remember the nasty girl from work I mentioned in this most depressing post, I have an interesting story about that. She coordinated a Secret Santa swap for work and asked me to participate. I declined for a number of reasons: I don’t know most of the people I work with well, I’m broke, I had a previous engagement for the Secret Santa swap with my fellow knitters. When I told her this, she told me she had a hand-knitted scarf that someone had made for her but lost it in a house fire last year just after Christmas.

So, I made her a scarf. I used some acrylic (read: cheap) red yarn and a free cable pattern, but I put love in each stitch. My family endured a house fire on December 23, 1989 wherein nearly everything I personally owned at the tender age of 12 burned up. I know what it’s like to lose sentimental items. I’m happy to report that she loves it. I gave it to her today and it was very well received.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

I’ve long felt destined for unhappiness. I don’t know that happiness is something attainable. I’d made my peace long ago that it would be fleeting. Now, I feel haunted by that very same knowledge. I’m frustrated. I’m discouraged.

When I was with xSO, I felt unhappy about most things: having to do everything alone, having been accused of things I otherwise wouldn’t have dreamed of, having to walk on eggshells, always afraid, sick with co-dependency of an addicted man, and on and on…

Now, a thousand miles and three years away, I am unhappy all the same. The sources are different: financial worries.

The paranoia has set in. I wonder if I am good enough. I wonder if some masochistic monster within seeks to sabotage so that I might find my rightful place in the world through co-dependency again.

My father is an alcoholic. Most members of my immediate family have at times indulged and battled addiction. Most haven’t made it. I grew up a passive-aggressive co-dependent. At some point along the way, I grew out of it. Now, it seems to have found it’s way back into my life after so many years with an addict. I’ve become non-confrontational. Me. If ever you’ve known me, you’d know this is quite unlike me.

So I’m working this go-nowhere job waiting tables that literally frustrates me to tears. Why, just today I cried. There are these two girls with whom I work that, since they have been there for a good while longer than I, don’t believe they need to do any actual work.

Again, I was shoved into the back corner of the restaurant where no decent, well-tipping human being would actually want to sit. We were slammed. One of the girls - one I actually like - had to leave early and instead of rearranging the seating chart to the advantage of those she’d leave behind, she totally screwed us. And the one girl (of the aforementioned two that refuse to do any actual work) is perpetually, unprovokedly nasty towards me. She made a snide comment toward me today that, had it been the me of 5-8 years ago, would’ve earned her a broken nose.

About a month ago, our restaurant brought in a new general manager. He observed us in action for about two weeks and then called a store-wide mandatory meeting on an early Sunday morning two weeks ago. He tells us we need to do a better job of covering our ink and piercings are no longer tolerated. He tells us we all need to purchase solid black shoes, they are to have no other color markings of any kind. After the meeting, I approached him. I made $60 working 20 hours that week, I’ve got rent to pay - there is no money for investing in shoes! He told me, quite flatly “You’ve got two weeks.”

Those two weeks are now up. This weeks earnings? $105. Let’s not leave out that I had to borrow $200 from my mom to cover the rent five days ago. I appreciate what he’s trying to do, but there is no money for new shoes, dammit.

Back to today. We are completely, chaotically in the weeds for hours. I kept getting double- and triple-seated; it was impossible to provide good service to any of these people. The kitchen was insane: we’re talking 30 minute check times for a half a sandwich and a bowl of soup. And my tips reflected it. I made $36 in 5 hours. One table I waited on racked up a $50 check and left me with a measly dollar. When it was all said and done, the restaurant looked as though a tornado hit.

I wanted so badly to cash out, hand over the money to the boss and walkout, cursing him and the rest of the staff all the way out the door in front of all the guests. Instead, I tuck my chin and keep working. I cleaned the tables in my section properly, I did my assigned side work and rolled the lion’s share of the silverware. And when I did finally cash out, I said nothing to the boss regarding the lopsided politics of the restaurant. I went out to my car and cried a good, hard cry.

I feel trapped, cornered.

I went through complete hell to get the Associate’s degree. Constantly fighting with the ex about just what exactly I was doing mingly with the natives on campus, staying up late to finish homework, juggling a part-time job at the campus bookstore and another part-time job waiting tables (at a GREAT restaurant where I earned better than twice what I earn now!), all while raising a little girl and playing babysitter to an addict with no sense of the real world past the buzz or the buzz he didn’t have.

I’m angry about it. All that work to push a broom and make peanuts. I apply to jobs I dare dream I might like and if I am so lucky to make it into the interview, they see my tattoos and/or piercings and decide they can take on someone else with the same credentials, the same qualifications and no ink, no piercings. And where is he (the ex, that is) in all of this? Not paying child support, that’s for sure.

Worst of all, I’m really disgusted with myself when I look in the mirror. I’m ashamed that I can’t get a decent job, guilt-ridden that it’s no one’s fault but my own. I am angry that I’m overlooked and under-appreciated at work. I’m angry that the economy is in the toilet and despite being qualified, I’m passed over for various jobs I know I would be great at. I’m pissed that I’m even considering applying at the three nearest fast food restaurants. Worse still, I strongly fear that I won’t be able to get work there, either.

When did I become this person that needed other people to validate her?

I quit.

Things have been very, very emotional around here. The past few weeks, I have been scrounging for cash to pay our bills. Husband has gotten his business license and we’ve done some low-budget advertising with not much luck. I’ve been working on some online projects to make some money, including starting a new blog,. The Natal Astrology blog feels promising - it’s a niche that isn’t terribly crowded, I love the subject matter and won’t be running out of material to blog about in the foreseeable future. In the last 11 days of October, I made $9.75 - not a gob of cash, but at this point, every little bit counts!

I spent a lot of hard labor hours working on my mom’s shop, too, with Husband’s help. We got rid of a lot of garbage and donated a lot of practical (but useless to mom) stuff to the Goodwill. I’m very grateful that she helped us out - we wouldn’t have made the rent this month without this job.

Ginger, my beloved Hemingway cat, started urinating in weird places. Then we noticed blood in his urine. I did some online research and discovered that an older male cat with a UTI could die of renal failure if not treated. I cried a lot. Do I dip into my already scarce rent funds to help my cat?

Damn right I do.

I ended up calling into work last Thursday to take him to the vet. I opted for the antibiotics only, the cheapest route. If they don’t work, we’ll hafta go back for x-rays to see if he has bladder stones. So far, he is passing urine still and while it isn’t much, it’s no longer bloody. My fingers are crossed.

I managed to get Joy in to her doctor on Thursday, as well. Her ’script was running low and I was worried that she’d be off her meds for a long time, as it is often difficult to get in with her doctor right away.

Not sure exactly how we managed, but rent was paid, the cat and kid were dealt with, and all is okay. Not great, but okay.

My dad called on Thursday, but we didn’t talk until Friday. He told me that my gramma is having surgery on Monday to have a lung removed. Given her age and overall health, he said she has about a 20% chance of surviving the surgery. I’m stunned by this news. She is my only living grandparent. While we aren’t close, I fully expected that one day, I’d take my kids and Husband to spend Thanksgiving with her. That may not happen now.

We took the kids trick-or-treating with P and her girls on Friday.

Yesterday, they came over to our place for a bit, we ate a delicious dinner and just hung out. It was good for me. I have been spending my free time working on some knitted gifts for P and was able to give some of it to her. I finished up the scarf yesterday after she left.

I work this afternoon. I hate working Sundays, but we need the money. I asked for extra shifts, too. Hopefully it won’t suck to work some nights and I will actually earn some decent income from this place. In the meantime, we’ll still do what we can on the side to make it.

I’ve been missing from the blog!

Truth is, life has been pretty hectic and mostly depressing. I haven’t felt compelled to write much, what with all the money worry that is going on with us right now. I haven’t checked the Google Reader in over a week, haven’t been very active on Entrecard or even Plurk. I’ve focused my online time to trying to earn some flow and my offline time to the same thing. I apologize for not posting anything interesting in a while. I’ll be back around again as soon as I can.

Namaste.

I fell asleep with Buddha early on Monday night, ’round 8pm. At 2:30am, we awoke to some commotion. My bed has a clear view to the bathroom down the hall when our bedroom door is open - and it was - and I see Husband standing there with Joy, lights ablaze about the entire apartment. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes to see what the hell is going on.

Joy has been sick. The out-from-every-orifice kinda sick, no less. Husband was cleaning up after her (she would have made it if not for the dag-blasted baby gate) and she was fresh from a shower. Well, as fresh as one can be after this kinda sick in a bathroom rife with said sickness.

Well, I have already slept for a good 7 hours or more, so sleep is done. The girl is up and down all night, running for the bathroom. Husband didn’t go to bed until 6am. I don’t even remember why not, just that it aggravated the hell outta me later that day.

Now it’s Tuesday. But not just any Tuesday - no, it’s the Tuesday we’ve been looking forward to for about 3 weeks, when Buddha first got his cast. His appointment is at 12:45pm for x-rays and, God willing, cast removal. That begs the question, what do you do with the girl? One can’t very well take a sick girl to the office of an orthopedic doctor. I did the next best thing. I made her a Nyquil smoothie and called my mom. Turns out that mom is sitting at the Immediate Care Center herself: she fell and suspected (rightly so, we later learned) a broken thumb. Okay, so I really didn’t make the girl a NyQuil smoothie, but my mom did come over to hang out with her while Husband and I took the boy in for doom and gloom x-rays and cast removal.

Unlike the last time, we were only at the doctor’s office maybe an hour. If we had thought the reaction boy had to the x-rays was similar to torture, well he truly must have been dying for real when the nurse removed his cast. I felt sorry for him during the x-ray and coddled him, but the way he howled when the nurse was trying to fit him for a boot after his cast was off had me referring to him as mama’s drama queen son. They weren’t able to get that damn boot on him the right way, ’cause he was so full of drama and wouldn’t stop squirming and trying to kick the nurse with the recently-declared no-longer-broken leg. But he still walked with the thing on.

The entire way home he picked at the velcro on the boot and told us “Off!” The doc said that he didn’t need it, but that some people - kids or otherwise - do well to have some transition support. We took the boot off of him when we got home and he has scampered about without it ever since. At first we tried to coerce it back on for at least a few hours a day, but he adamantly refuses. Frankly, it’s not a battle I want to fight. He’s still walking around with a stiff ankle turned outward as though the cast is still there, but he’s enjoying bending his knees again.

And despite being super-flarpin’ tired from the long day (that started at 2:30am) of puking girl and screaming boy, I stayed up too late, without going to knit night. Boo hiss!

Wednesday came and went without much of a hitch. Joy stayed home from school again since she needed a little more time to feel normal and correct her sleep schedule. I worked. (Did I mention that I hate the job? It’s not even so much the actual work I do so much as the people with whom I work and the fact that, due to said people, I don’t make enough to actually support anything.) We went to Big Rob’s girlfriend’s house for dinner. She recently moved and they wanted us to check out the new place. Moreover, Big Rob decided that he wanted our mom to meet his girlfriend. We had a pretty good time and her new place is really nice, but Joy was whiny and Buddha was into everything at her not-childproof apartment. It could’ve been more fun.

Again, I stayed up too late. Tsk, tsk, tata!

This time, it was the boy. He wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse still, so it wasn’t unusual when he woke up this time. But, he didn’t wake up to nurse; rather he woke up to puke, first in his own bed, then in ours. I was so frustrated that I left the room and came to the couch, yelling at Husband all the while. Why would he think I’d want to lie in vomit while I sleep?! Not much later, he emerged from the bedroom with the boy and the two of them stole the couch from me. I dozed for a bit in the office chair (big mistake - my back has been killing me ever since) while we laundered the linen from both our bed and the boy’s and every farkin’ towel in the house. The poor kid must’ve thrown up every half hour all morning long. I wasn’t able to find anyone to cover my shift at work, so I went in despite having only slept all of maybe two hours.

Work was awful. The other servers that have been there the longest have this attitude like they don’t have to do any of the required sidework to keep the restaurant running smoothly through the rush. This one in particular made a snotty comment about how she isn’t going to run silverware through the wash ’cause “it’ll fuck up my nails.” I was so frustrated that I came within inches of quitting. I made a whooping $18 over in the corner-hole section where no patron in their right mind would want to dine. Guess who decided that section should be mine?! You guessed it - the same one that made the aforementioned comment.

I called Husband as I was leaving work to vent. He said the boy was still puking every half hour. He’d given him a light lunch of dry toast and water and everything came back up. When I got home, Buddha was asleep, but as soon as he woke up, he begged to nurse, begged for his cup, and begged for food. I nursed him for about 20 minutes and we waited at the ready with a towel. Nothing. I gave him small sips of water one straw-full at a time. We waited at the ready with a towel and still nothing. I had even offered to let him drink straight from the cup with the straw, but when I wouldn’t let him hold the cup, he had a meltdown of colossal proportions that drove my sleep-deprived mind to the brink. I finished the laundry and went to bed, closing the door behind me. I don’t even know what time it was. I can say that Joy wasn’t home from school yet (she gets here about 4:15pm). I slept until about 4:30am.

While dozing in the office chair yesterday morning, I was trying to publish a sponsored post but my server was down. That led to more frustration for the day yesterday, too. I tried to resolve the issue a number of ways before throwing the towel in. In any case, I wanted to point out that I knew about it, tried to fix it, and that now all seems to be working in order again. I lost the opportunity to actually earn from that sponsored post, so I took it back down. Oh, well.

Could be worse.

Buddha’s leg is broken. Refresher here. Needless to say, I feel like the World’s Worst Mama.

Joy was late for school this morning. We all piled in the Jeep at 8:45am, dropped Joy to school, made a deposit at the bank, stopped at the gas station and went to Buddha’s appointment.

From there, we were sent downtown to the Children’s Hospital for X-rays. He hated the X-rays. I cried with him.

They wouldn’t give me the results and I couldn’t get the doctor’s office on the phone. Lots of freaking out ensued. The radiologist tech was awesome, though and made it happen. The NP we saw at the doctor’s office confirmed that his right tibia is fractured.

We waited around for films to be developed to take to orthopedics. Naturally stressed out, I went outside and off hospital campus for a smoke. On my way back in, I fell and busted my knee up something horrid. It’s all swollen and wicked red.

Then to the orthopedic office. But wait! No one is home to get Joy off the school bus. ARGH! Rushed over to pick her up from school, then to the pediatric orthopedic office clear back the other side of town. We were in that office for over 3 hours. Both of my kids made me proud by being extremely well-behaved. Buddha was in good spirits, particularly considering the injury and the strong negative reaction he had to the X-ray procedures. Finally, at long last, he was seen by the doctor and casted. He didn’t much care for that whole ordeal, either.

My poor baby.

It was 6:30pm when we left the office. We stopped at McDonald’s for dinner. I ran into yet another familiar (and beautiful) face, which lifted my mood a bit. I wish we could’ve visited longer. It was 7:30pm by the time we got home. Husband, the boy and I are thoroughly exhausted. We are going to crawl on the couch and watch television for the remainder of the evening.