My Take on Finances

In case you missed it, I posted a question on my facebook page tonight asking people what they wanted me to write about. A fairly common theme in the questions related to finances, and how I budget my money.

First off, let me say that I find this question.....hysterical? ironic? surreal? insane?

Let me explain.

For the majority of my adult life, starting in college, I was always broke. I didn't manage my money well at all. If I had it, I spent it - because that's what you do with money, right?

There were a few years, before I got married the first time, when I was somewhat responsible with money. I didn't have anything in savings, but my bills were getting paid and I could go out and buy stuff whenever I wanted to, but that was about it.

Throughout my first marriage, we struggled. The kids came quickly, and so did the expenses. We lived beyond our means, and it was hard to catch up when we fell behind. I have always been incredibly anal when it comes to balancing a checkbook and so ours was always balanced TO THE PENNY - which saved our asses when we had to live for 2 weeks with 38 cents in the checking account. But, I knew that nothing was going to bounce because we had that 38 cent cushion.

Fast forward through a couple more kids and two divorces. I wasn't working, but I still had bills. I sold anything that I owned in order to pay the utilities. I had payment arrangements out the wazoo in order to keep the bill collectors at bay. It was survival of the fittest to the nth degree - but we had food and we managed to survive.

And then my second ex-husband unexpectedly passed away. Through the fog immediately following his death, I was instructed to contact Social Security about benefits for Daniel....and I found out that we both qualified. We were within days of being homeless when we received our first checks - I hesitantly deposited them and paid our rent for the following month, and then sat down with the bills.

With that money, I was able to pay our bills. I was able to pay the rent and the utilities and buy a newer, more dependable van. I contacted anyone that I owed money to and set up payment arrangements and got everything paid off (eventually).

Now, a few years later....I have a system. As I get the bills, they get jotted down in my datebook. Just an abbreviation for the bill itself, and the amount due on the due date. That way, everything is laid out in front of me. Then, when we get our Social Security (towards the end of the month), I sit down and I pay every. single. bill. for the month. I write checks for what I have to and pay the rest online, but after about an hour or so, everything is paid. It's done. And what I have left is what I have left. With that money, I can go to the grocery store or whatever else I need, but I know that whatever is leftover is it.

Most of the time, what I have left has to last for 4 weeks, but every few months it turns into 5 weeks (we get our payments on the 4th Wednesday of the month) so sometimes things get a little tight on the 5 week months - but I've kind of gotten used to that.  I balance the checkbooks every few days, and then I average it out to see how much money I have left "per day" until the next payment comes in - I have a dollar amount that I am comfortable with, and if I go below that amount, then I know that I have to reign in the spending a bit.

I got lucky this year and I ended up getting a much bigger tax refund than I had expected (thank you, full-time crappy job)  and that helped immensely - it all went into the savings to use for unexpected house expenses and whatnot. Any "extra" money that I get goes into the savings - I can still access it, but it takes a little bit of effort because I have to actually transfer it before I can get to it to spend it. If I happen to get any "extra" money - it goes into the savings also. At this point, the savings is strictly earmarked for house and TMOART:14 expenses (if you don't know what that is, you'll have to stick around to find out). And for the first time in my adult life, I am actually looking into investing in some CDs in order to stash some cash just a *little* bit farther out of reach, without being totally unobtainable in the event of an emergency.

In a nutshell, that is my budgeting strategy. It works for us, but it may not work for anyone else. I still struggle with the idea that my bills get paid because my ex-husband died, but at the same time I constantly remind myself that "it is what it is" - and I make sure that I make the best possible financial choices that I can for my family.

Maybe it's official....

Lots of stuff still going on with the house. After all of the chaos that was Friday, we had a fairly quiet weekend. I waited to hear back from Mortgage Lady because she said she was going to touch base with me on Sunday, but I didn't hear from her.

Yesterday morning, I got an email from a woman who works with Mortgage Lady. She needed some additional info (mainly documentation of that bill being paid off) and so we emailed back and forth several times until I got an email from her that about knocked me out of my seat....

Unfortunately {Mortgage Lady} is no longer with us. I believe that she is still going to finish the files that she has but she will not be in the {local} office.

Wait, what????!?!?!! What do you mean?!?!?! Mortgage Lady has been there for me from the get-go! She's been there since before I even started the process! How can she just leave me hanging like this??? Noooooooooo.......

After I got over my initial panic, Mortgage Lady 2.0 explained that she had been working with Mortgage Lady the entire time, and everything would be fine. She knows my story, she knows my file, and there is nothing to worry about.

Uh huh. Sure. Easy for her to say.

Anyway, more emails between me and Mortgage Lady 2.0, and me and Realtor Lady, and I started to think that maybe, just maybe things were going to be ok. They seemed way calmer about the whole situation than I was, so I did my best to take my cues from them.

I didn't have to work today, so after I got the boys to school I came home and started puttering around. I had gotten some empty boxes from work and decided to start in the laundry room, which has been a store room to a ton of games and toys that the kids just don't use anymore. I started going through the stuff and trashed the ones that were missing too many pieces, packed the ones that I want to keep, and posted the rest on facebook in the hopes that some of my friends would want to adopt some new games.

I actually made a little bit of progress, although there's still way more to do - but at least I got started. No more denial - time to start packing.

The Dude came over to hang out for a while this afternoon and we were talking about everything that has been happening with all of this. Then the emails started flying again. Long story short, closing is now officially scheduled for Monday, January 27 at 3:00pm.

Officially. Like.....it's going to happen.

*commence panic attack #745,812 of this process*

At that point we decided to go out and grab a (very) late lunch. As we ate, he tried to talk me down from my freak out (he failed miserably) and we just tried to absorb the enormity of what is about to happen.

As I go through this process, there are so many emotions that go along with it. On the outside, it's just me buying a house - not such a big deal. People do it every day.

But there's also the doubt, the fear, the caution that it might not happen. I know in my head at this point, it's going to happen. But it seems like such a stretch for me - ME - to be doing this. I've made some pretty stupid choices in my life, and none of them should have led me in this direction, but here I am about to commit to a 6-figure investment that in a way I feel that I don't even deserve.

I know that realistically, I could not afford to do this without the Social Security. And I am well-aware that I would not be receiving that if my second husband hadn't passed away. That makes this whole process more than a bit bittersweet for me. I still battle with the feelings of guilt over his death, even though I know that it wasn't my fault. I struggle with the thought that the money that Daniel and I get because he died is what is making the home of my dreams a reality for me - but at the same time, I know that I am doing the right thing by making sure that we have a home that suits our needs in so many ways.

I think about my battle to avoid homelessness a few years ago, and can't wrap my head around the fact that very soon, we will be in a house with 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms and more than enough room to meet our needs plus some.

Overwhelming doesn't even begin to describe it. Seriously, there are no words to describe how I'm feeling right now. I wish that I could explain it, and I will probably ramble on and on about it over the next few weeks as I try to work through all of it in my head. All I know is that right now, I'm caught somewhere between ecstatic and numb - and feeling maybe a little bit of both.

Progress.....I think.

*gasp*

Two blog posts in two days? Can it be????

Seriously though, I want to do better about this, plus use this as sort of a journal of the last leg of this house-buying journey.

Alex and Daniel didn't have school today, so we slept in a little bit. I had to get Alex to Wichita this morning for an allergist appointment, so when I woke up I knew we had to get moving fairly soon. I checked my phone to see what notifications I had, and there was an email from Mortgage Lady. I read it and quickly grabbed the laptop.

Basically, what she said was that the Rural Development people had already gone over everything, and there were a couple of things that I needed to do. One was to pay off a really really old bill - back in my past life, an old cable bill had gone to collections and stayed there. When we started working on my credit report, we ignored that one for several reasons, but we knew that it would probably have to be paid prior to closing on the house. When my file went to the underwriters, they made me pay off another one that was in collections, but never said anything about this one - so we hoped that they were going to ignore it. Long story short, they didn't ignore it, and I had to pay it. No biggie - I was prepared, plus today was payday from work so the money was already in my checking account. I dug up the number for the collection agency, called them and paid it in full before I even got out of bed.

I emailed Mortgage Lady to let her know. She would need verification as soon as they processed the payment so I called the collection agency back and they said that they would fax her the info.

The boys and I hopped into the GrandpaCar and took off for Wichita. The appointment went well and we grabbed a quick lunch afterwards. Another email from Mortgage Lady arrived - the "dirt work" has to be done.

"Dirt work" - another long story.

Shortened version - structural engineer inspected the house and it passed with flying colors. On his report, he put a disclaimer that he puts on every single one of his reports saying that there should be dirt put around the foundation sloping away from the house to help with drainage. Rural Development now decided that this HAS to be done. We had a feeling that this was going to happen too, so Realtor Lady already had a spare load of dirt dumped at the house (the woman is awesome). I tried unsuccessfully to locate a wheelbarrow on my way back from Wichita, and instead stopped and bought one. Seriously - I've been wanting one for a while (who in their right mind wants to buy a wheelbarrow? and do you know how expensive those things are? and how hard they are to fit in the trunk of the GrandpaCar?) so I just bought it. Boom.

Came home, changed clothes, bought lunch for The Dude, took that to him, tossed the wheelbarrow in the back of his truck, threw him the keys to the GrandpaCar, and took off to the house.

I spent the next 3-4 hours moving wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the driveway to the side of the house, as well as battling the boys to NOT throw piles of dirt in the driveway, and to stay out of the truck, and to stay where I could see them, and no I'm not driving across town just to get you a drink, yada yada yadaaaaa......

Suddenly another truck pulled into the driveway. A man and a woman got out and the man introduced himself to me as the seller.

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh......so YOU are the man who has been a total pain in my ass since this thing started? I had to stop myself from saying it out loud. The woman with him was his mother-in-law, who also happens to be his realtor.

Great.

We actually had a very nice visit. We chatted about the house in general and I told them how I had immediately fallen in love with it. I told them about some of our plans, and as soon as I mentioned putting a clothesline in out back, I immediately got on the mother-in-law's good side and she joined in on the conversation. They shared a little bit more about the history of the house and I told them that I was interested in learning anything that they want to share about it. It was awesome, and they admitted that they were relieved that someone wasn't going to just buy it and flip it, but was instead going to fix it up and live in it and love it. I told them about how I had lost everything and was days away from being homeless a few years ago, and how that made this whole process so much more important for me. All in all I think that it was a great little chat and having that face-to-face interaction was a nice surprise prior to meeting over the closing documents.

I did find it amusing that he is planning to pay someone to move the pool table out of the basement just so that he can sell it. I told him that he is more than welcome to leave it there, but he really wants to sell it. I'm curious to see if it actually happens or not - it honestly doesn't bother me one way or another. It would be nice to have, but I can use the added floor space just as much as I can use the table.

Oh, and they're taking the rocks out of the one flowerbed. Yes, the rocks. But, in his defense they're from various camping trips all over the country, so they do actually have sentimental value.

He also warned me that the neighborhood can be kind of competitive when it comes to yardwork.

Ha. Bring it.

In the meantime, more emails back and forth. Mortgage Lady was having trouble getting the verification that she needed from the collection agency, so I called them again. As it turned out, I had to fax them something with my signature for them to release the information to her (and you didn't tell me that this morning because...............?????) and since The Dude's truck isn't equipped with a portable fax machine, I had to cut my dirt moving short, drive back to town, stop at my bank, scrounge up a piece of paper, write out the authorization, and have them fax it to Mortgage Lady. I emailed her to let her know that they now had the authorization - so hopefully she got what she needed from them.

Back to the house to dump the wheelbarrow into the garage, then to The Dude's work to swap vehicles with him, then out to grab something to eat. Then home again.

Baths. Cleaning. Laundry. Preparing to go back to work tomorrow. Hoping that The Dude is over his stomach bug enough that he can handle the boys all day while I'm stuck in Fast Food Hell. Still trying to figure out how to deal with this whole job thing. Making lists of things that need to be done in both houses before/during/after the move. Hoping to win the lottery just to make life easier.

Just another day.....

It's been a little while.....

So yeah. It's been a while since I've blogged anything. I've been wanting to, trust me. But I just haven't had the time or the energy.

Here's a nutshell for you:

Things are still progressing with the house. Like......all we're waiting for at this point is a date to close. The file went from the underwriters to the Rural Development people a couple of days ago, and RD is taking an average of 10 days to do their thing right now. Once they do their thing, all that's left is the closing. So I have reason to believe that I'll be a homeowner within the next few weeks.

Then there's the job. I've talked about the stress before, and it's really only gotten worse. Although CrankyPants hasn't been as cranky lately, she still has her moments. Not to mention that the job in general just sucks. I'm still not a morning person, and add to that being on my feet for 8+ hours straight without a break, and I'm miserable. I come out of there hurting so much by the end of the day that I can barely walk, and I can't get anything done around the house because I hurt so much.

Then of course there was the whole issue with my van finally self-destructing. It's still sitting in my backyard, dead - and it needs to go away. But I need to find the time to get it cleaned out and list it for sale. Or scrap it. Or something. Add that to the list of things to do.

I borrowed a friend's itty bitty car for a couple of weeks until I could buy my GrandpaCar - literally, it belonged to a friend's grandfather. It's not the most ideal vehicle for us, but I was limited because I can't just go out and finance something while I'm waiting to get the approval for the house. But, it works and it gets us where we need to go. It has a few quirks and needs a little bit of work done to it, but that'll hopefully be taken care of in the next few weeks sometime.

Add all of that to the normal stress of our everyday life, running kids to and from everywhere they need to go, trying to spend as much time as possible with The Dude, dealing with random health issues, handling landlord/maintenance issues in my current house, and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity - and you can imagine how hectic it's been.

Seriously though....the biggest worry on my mind right now is my job. I keep making lists of pros and cons in my head, and I can't really come up with anything good about it except for my coworkers - and I don't have to have the job to keep in touch with them. The hours make it extremely difficult for me to do much of anything for myself - and I find myself getting less and less sleep just to try to get the basics done. The job is making it harder for me to take care of myself - and if I don't do that, I'm just not going to make it. I know that right now, I've about pushed myself to the limit, both physically and mentally. I just don't think that I can do it anymore. Being in the fortunate position of not needing the job to survive makes it harder for me to go in every day - because why would anyone put themselves through this if it wasn't needed?

So at this point, I know that I'm going to quit - I just don't know when. I want it to be sooner rather than later, but I also have to make sure that the drop in my income won't affect my chances of getting the final loan approval. I qualify for the house even without the job income - but I don't want to risk it. I sent an email to Mortgage Lady asking her opinion on it, and I'm waiting to hear back from her before I do anything.

That's where I am. One big stressed out and anxiety-ridden mess.

But it could be worse. It could always be worse.

I never thought it would happen. Never.

You know, it's kind of funny. When I was kid, I loved to draw. Whenever I drew a house, it always looked the same - kind of like this...

I never claimed to be an artist.

Anyway, as The Dude and I have been out shopping for houses, we found one that we both like. A lot. And the funny thing is that it really kind of looks like the house that I always drew as a kid. Except it's straighter. And prettier. And has a front porch. And a hot tub. But I digress.....

We were shopping for houses with the knowledge that my credit wasn't quite where it needed to be yet. I've been working on it, but as anyone who has shoddy credit knows, it's a process. I have been working with an agency that has been busting their butts to get negative stuff removed for the past few months. We thought that I was where I needed to be a couple of months ago when my scores suddenly tanked. I was heartbroken. As it turned out, an old debt (to the tune of $3000+) that has been in collections for years - and that I have been faithfully making payments on for years - was sold to a new collection agency, who in turn started reporting it as new debt. It killed my credit.

Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago when I got a letter in the mail. It was from one of the credit reporting agencies. Nervously, I opened it. 

According to the letter, that particular negative piece of information was deleted from my credit report. Deleted. Thinking back to how much of a negative impact it had when it appeared, I wondered what kind of a positive impact it would have when it disappeared.

As the battle against this particular creditor was happening, I paid off my credit cards. I also paid off a couple of smaller debts with the agreement that those creditors would remove the negative information from my report. I also got the raise at work, and the Social Security that Daniel and I receive increased at the same time.

So on Friday, I was able to check my new and improved credit scores through an online deal that was set up by the credit-report-cleaner-upper-people (my official name for them). I already know that the numbers that I see are slightly higher than the official numbers, so when I saw on Friday that they were high enough, I anxiously contacted Mortgage Lady (also her official name). She was excited to hear the news, and we agreed to meet this morning.

Fast forward to about 2am today, when Daniel's official name changed to Sir Pukesalot. He kept that up for the rest of the night, but seemed to level out a bit. The Dude had planned to go and meet with Mortgage Lady with me, but because Daniel was so sick I emailed her and asked her to just pull my credit report without me and to call me, rather than run the risk of Daniel hurling in her office. The Dude came over and we waited by the phone. Finally she called.

It's official. My credit score is now high enough to qualify for a mortgage.

I started shaking and pacing around the house while I talked to her. I'm not officially pre-qualified for anything yet because there is still one account on my credit report that is showing as "in dispute" - so I have to contact all 3 agencies and tell them to remove that because nothing can happen while there is an active dispute. Minor detail, really. But qualifying for "our" house will not be an issue - and we can actually look at houses in a higher price range than I would have even thought possible.

I contacted the realtor who has been helping us, and "our" house is still on the market.

I am completely and totally overwhelmed right now. Just over 3 years ago, I was on the verge of being homeless. People were sending me money to try to help me save my old house, but it wasn't enough and it went into foreclosure and we were forced to move. We moved into this house only because I qualified for assistance at the time - but I had no idea how I was going to pay the rent when that assistance ended, which was only 3 months. Then my ex passed away and the Social Security started and through the emotional turmoil that followed, the bills started getting paid regularly. It was a horrible way to get the bills paid, but I did what I had to do with what I had - and it's led me to where I am today. Between the Social Security and the job - I will be able to own a house, and soon. 

Me. The same person who was days away from being homeless just 3 years ago - will be buying a house within the next few months.

It's crazy and mind boggling and overwhelming and exciting and scary and surreal, all at the same time. 

The past few days.

I feel like I have to play catch-up. I've kind of lost track of some things over the past few days.

I vaguely remember telling someone that I would post a picture showing what I mean when I say that I have to "mow the trees" in my yard, so here it is.

Sunrise from the parking lot at work.

Alex's procedures yesterday. They went very well. Visually, everything is fine so we just have to wait for biopsy results, which we also expect will be normal. They were just done as a routine part of the scopes. Again, I'm not going into details about what is going on with him, but generally speaking we are trying to rule some things out, which it appears that we did.

Gotta' love those post-op popsicles.

And we got some nifty pictures of his (healthy) innards.

After not eating for about 36 hours, we were hungry. He chose Spangles - and I didn't complain.

Later, we decided to go out for a bit. We grabbed something to eat for supper, stopped at the library, then headed to the pool.

Yup. Same kid who had a colonoscopy and
endoscopy 10 hours before...

He *wanted* his ears like that.

Today was a rougher day. I received news through facebook that Jared's buddy, who has been battling brain cancer since last fall, had passed away. Jared was already back at his father's house when I found out, so I let him tell him - because honestly, I couldn't. Then I found out later that he hadn't actually passed, but things were looking very bleak. Needless to say, he has been on my mind all day long.

Then The Dude and I went and met with Mortgage Lady, hoping to get some good news. My credit scores were where they needed to be to be pre-approved for a loan, and I had all of the documentation that I needed. When she pulled my official credit report, there were some issues. In the grand scheme of things, they're not major issues, but they're bad enough that it's going to be at least another month - or maybe two - until we can move on and get the pre-approval. I had gotten my hopes up, and when I left her office I felt totally deflated. Honestly, I still do.

Just some of the paperwork so far.

As horrible as today has been, I'm trying so hard to keep it all in perspective. I know that things in my own life could be so much worse than they really are but right now I'm going through one of those times when I really wish that the crap would stop piling up on top of me. Waiting on updates on Jared's friend is tearing my heart to shreds, and finding out that we're NOT as close to getting a house as I thought we were has made today one of the hardest days for me in recent history.

But, it could be worse.

One step at a time. That's all I can do.

The last few days...

Just some random pictures from the past couple of days....

My new shoes finally arrived on Friday morning - in a standard size shoe box. Not the magical shape-shifting box that FedEx had me convinced that they were using to travel across the country, but just a normal old box. We were all just kind of hanging out, laying around, thinking about getting up and getting dressed, when the mailman scared the crap out of all of us by knocking on the door to hand me the package - he had a very law enforcement officer sounding knock for some reason. But the terror created by his knocking was quickly diminished when I realized that it was just the mailman, and he had my shoes!

I am not a "name brand shoes" kind of girl - but I couldn't beat
the price on these and I'm just hoping that they actually last!

And ok, I have to admit - this is really cool. 

Goofing around with Jared before we all actually
got up and got moving.

So after we all got up (for real - I had been up earlier to take Alex and Daniel to school, but the other 3 were off) The Dude and I took Emily and Jared out to brunch before taking them back over to their father's house. We just went to a local place so that we could get breakfast or lunch or whatever we wanted. This place is cool because each table has different sports cards under glass - we sat at the baseball table this time. The Dude and Emily really got into discussing baseball, but Jared was too busy blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk to really care about anything else going on around him.

The Dude left from there to go do some mechanical work before he had to go to work, and I took the kids over to their father's house. After I dropped them off, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision and stopped at the local real estate place just to touch base and see if they had anything available since we're trying to get moved. The person who I needed to talk to wasn't there (of course) but she should be contacting me soon. After that, I came back to town and stopped at a mortgage place - again, spur-of-the-moment - and actually got to sit down with a lady (who I had dealt with before) and we were able to go over my credit report and do some figuring on what I could afford if we decided to actually buy a place right now. I was actually surprised at how good things look for me in that department - there are a few questionable things on my credit report, but nothing major. I have to make some phone calls about those on Monday morning and see what I can do with them, but at this point I am happy to say that we are officially looking for a new place to live.

After all of that, I had to pick Alex and Daniel up from school, and Daniel greeted me with this face. Yep, someone had a birthday and brought cupcakes to school. Apparently they ate them as they were walking out the door and didn't have time to wash their faces! All I could do was laugh at him and then attempt to wipe it off with an old bottle of water and a crumpled up napkin that I found in the van. Hey, it worked. Sort of.

My office. Granted, I've cleaned it since I took the picture, but this
is where I'm spending the majority of my time this weekend as I work
on a new project or three.

Daniel and I decided to take a walk to return
some movies, get some more, and maybe get
some junk food since it's just the two of us here
for about 24 hours.

***Note: I apologize for the horrendous formatting on this post. I don't know what provoked my blog to have an attitude tonight, but apparently something did. It's not cooperating, and I'm tired of fighting with it. So, you get an ugly post. I'll do better tomorrow. I hope.

Thankful.

Today, I am thankful. For so many things - and I don't know if I can even express all of them.

First and foremost, I am so incredibly thankful that I have my wheels back...

I couldn't have gotten it done without the kindness and generosity of so many of you - and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I am amazed still by all of it, and it still brings me to tears if I think about it too much.

I am thankful that the transmission waited to die until we were home safely after our road trip.

I am incredibly thankful that the axle didn't fall apart until it was in the garage being repaired already - for those of you who missed that story...

The garage guy called me yesterday (was it yesterday? I think it was yesterday...) to tell me that he had good news and bad news. The good news was that he was able to locate a remanufactured transmission and wanted to put that in the van instead of a used one, but for the same price. I was thrilled with that news. But then he told me that as he was under the van working on it, the drivers side axle literally fell apart in his hands. It broke. Snapped. Crumbled. So he had to replace that, which obviously cost extra. So, I scrounged and came up with the extra money, which is going to make the rest of the month tight, but the van is fixed.

And I am so thankful that the axle broke then, and not while we were doing 75mph on the highway. Had it happened then, chances are that we wouldn't have landed upright. Or in one piece. And that thought just makes my skin crawl.

I am thankful for The Dude, for so many reasons. For him allowing me to borrow his van for the past 2 months. For making me smile when I don't really want to do it. For taking care of the kids for me while I was so sick last night that I literally couldn't stand up straight. For taking care of me and making me go to bed instead of staying up trying to get things done. For just being him and for loving me in spite of my neurotic tendencies and for "signing up" to be a part of our lives.

I am thankful for my little ghetto-esque house. The kids and I moved in to this house 2 years ago today. September 1, 2010 was the start of my new life and had I known then what I know now - wow.

I lost virtually everything in my second divorce. I lost our home because the mortgage wasn't in my name and I couldn't talk to the mortgage people to do anything about the payments that had been missed. I lost our van because again, that wasn't in my name and I couldn't renew the tags on it because of that. I lost a lot of my valuable possessions because I had to sell them to make ends meet. When I felt like my world was completely caving in around me, I found this awful little house - but I knew that I could make it work. Thanks to my church family volunteering their time to help, we got everything moved from the old house to this one. It took months to get things situated, but we eventually did it and we turned it into our home.

It's not the best house in the world - but for now, it's ours. And I know that we can stay here as long as we need to in order to save up enough money for our next move, which will be to the town where the older three kids go to school so that all of my kids can go to school in the same district. Although the house is tiny, we make it work (most of the time) and for that I am thankful.

Even though at this particular moment in time I feel like crap and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and go to sleep and not wake up until my allergy season is past, I am so incredibly thankful for my life.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Life is good.

An Open Letter to my ExLaws

Dear Family:

Let me start out by saying that I am sorry for the way that things have turned out between us. This is not how I wanted our relationship to be. When I married Jeff, I had visions of the perfect life, the perfect marriage, and the fairy tale ending in my dreams. Sadly, it didn’t turn out that way – at all.

However, there are some things that I need to say to you before any attempt at a "relationship" is made between you and Daniel. Honestly, at this point I am not even sure that I want him to have a relationship with any of you – this is something that I have struggled with for a long time, not just since Jeff's death.

My life, and Daniel's life changed forever on May 6, 2009 when I asked Jeff to leave our home for the last time. So many things happened leading up to that night, and I am quite sure that you know little or nothing about any of them. I'm fairly comfortable saying that I doubt that you know about the majority of the times that I had to call the police to our home because Jeff was in a drunken rage. I doubt that you know about the time that he choked me when I was 6 months pregnant with Daniel, or the time that he knocked me flat on the floor and almost broke my glasses, or the time that he kicked me because I finally figured out that he was hiding the bottles of booze in his boots. I'm assuming that he didn't tell you that the reason that I finally asked him to leave that night was because he was so intoxicated that he had pulled a knife out and was waving it around in front of the kids like a raving lunatic.

I doubt that you know about any of this. Why? Because since May 6, 2009, you haven't asked. You haven't picked up the phone to call and check on the well-being of your grandson. You haven't sent a letter explaining your feelings toward me. You have made no attempt at contact at all. To be brutally honest with you, that pisses me off. As far as I'm concerned, you wrote Daniel out of your lives more than two years ago. You weren’t there for Daniel when we lost our home and were within days of being on the street because Jeff refused to authorize the mortgage company to talk to me. You weren't there for Daniel when we lost the van because Jeff refused to work with me to renew the tags on it.

Jeff always used the excuse that because I had filed the PFA against him (after he threatened to kill me, by the way), no one in his family could contact me. Well, guess what? He left here on May 6, 2009. The PFA wasn't served to him until around mid-December 2009. Where were the phone calls during that 7 months? Where were the letters then? There was no legal reason at that time preventing you from contacting your grandson. YOU CHOSE NOT TO.

Even while the PFA was in effect, there was nothing preventing you from contacting Daniel. NOTHING. One call to me would have confirmed that. One call to the local police department here would have confirmed that. Did you do it? Nope. You chose not to have contact with Daniel. For the record, Jeff's visitation with Daniel was not limited during that time either. The judge informed him during the hearing for the PFA that he could have contact with Daniel ANY TIME HE WANTED TO, but he also chose to ignore him, his own son.

After the PFA expired, it took less than 12 hours for Jeff to call and start harassing me again. Did you call to check on Daniel? Nope. Again, you made the choice to ignore him.

Did you bother to call me and let me know that Jeff was sick? Or that he had been admitted to the hospital? No. Had I known, I might have allowed Daniel to talk to him on the phone one last time. But you robbed both Jeff and Daniel of that chance.

When Mary called to tell me that the family wanted to have a "relationship" with Daniel, I was angry. How could anyone who ignored a beautiful, smart, funny, amazing little boy for 2 years be deserving of having a relationship with him? You don't deserve anything from him. Nothing. He didn't deserve to be written off by his own flesh and blood – he didn't make that choice - you made it for him.

One thing that I don't deserve is the blame for Jeff's death. It is not my fault. I didn't force him to drink bottles upon bottles of booze every week. Yes, alcoholism is a disease and it clouded his thinking, but guess what? There's treatment for the disease – he made the choice to refuse that treatment. Mary informed me that he was in such a "deep, dark depression" because I wouldn't allow him to have contact with Daniel, and that it was that depression ultimately caused his death. What kind of a mother would I be if I allowed my toddler son to have a conversation with someone who was so drunk that his words were slurring? Yes, most of our phone conversations ended by me hanging up on him – but that's because I don't deserve to be spoken to like he did, and I don't have to be subjected to a drunk, either in person or on the phone.

I don't really care what you opinion is of me. You don't have to like me. But you have an amazing grandson here that you have ignored for more than two years. And nothing that you can do can make up for that, and nothing you can say will make me forgive you for it. You can come up with every excuse in the book, and I don't care – the point is that you never made the effort. Distance shouldn't be an issue – in this day and age, family can maintain a relationship from opposite sides of the world, if they choose to do so.

Like I always told Jeff – "it's all about choices". He chose to drink, he chose to refuse treatment, and those choices ultimately led to his death. You made the choice to ignore Daniel. I made the choice to remove myself and my kids from a potentially dangerous situation.

Don't get me wrong – I am absolutely devastated by Jeff's death. I never knew that it was possible to hurt this much, even after more than 3 months. I still loved him, and in a way I still do. I always hoped that he would get the treatment that he needed and that he would once again be the man that I fell in love with, and that we could make another attempt at having a real family again. I never wanted things to turn out the way that they have, but I had to do what I did in order to protect my kids and myself.

Daniel is sitting here on my lap as I type this. He's drawing pictures in a notebook and talking a mile a minute, and every now and then he turns to me and wipes the tears from my face. He has no idea that half of his family has ignored him for the past 2 years, because I haven't told him. He's too little to understand. His life consists of the family and friends who have been here for him without fail, and he is so happy and healthy and well-adjusted and smart because of the positive influences in his life. I refuse to allow negativity into his world right now – he is too young, and he has plenty of time as he gets older to deal with that.

If you are going to be a part of his life, I ask that you respect my feelings. As I said before, I don't expect you to like me or to agree with the decisions that I made, but I ask that you respect them. I did, and continue to do, what I believe is the best for my family. I will not tolerate anyone belittling me (or Jeff) in front of any of my children. I will do anything that I feel that I need to do to protect myself and my kids from any threat or negative influence out there.

It's up to you. If you want to have a healthy, positive relationship with Daniel, I give you my blessing.

Sincerely,
Amy