697 days

We reached a milestone today.

697 days.

Daniel was born on June 10, 2007. On May 6, 2009 - I told his father to leave our home for the last time ... 697 days later.

Daniel and I met The Dude for the first time on November 25, 2011 - 697 days ago.

As of today, The Dude has been a part of Daniel's life longer than his biological father was.

It's bittersweet for both of us. I asked The Dude today what he thought about it and his response was "conflicted". He's glad to be a part of Daniel's life, but at the same time he feels bad that Daniel will never get to know his father.

Honestly, it's the same for me. I know that his father loved him. I know that he had the potential to be a great father. But it just didn't happen that way. The addiction was too much to overcome and it tore our family apart before it took him away from us forever.

But, we have a good life now. We have come so far as a family and we are finally in a good place. The Dude has been amazing to all of us. Daniel looks to him as a father and I am so incredibly thankful for that. He knows that he has another father - but he also knows that The Dude is there for him and loves him even though there isn't a biological connection.

At his age, Daniel doesn't realize the significance of today. I've been thinking about it for weeks, because not only do I realize what this means for Daniel, but I realize what it means for me. I never dreamed that I would allow anyone to become such a huge part of our lives, but yet somehow, The Dude has wormed his way in and he still claims that he plans on staying. We have gone through so much crap in the past few months between work schedules and house hunting and injuries and illnesses and vehicle breakdowns and stress and chaos and panic - and yet we're still hanging in there (and creeping dangerously close to our 2 year anniversary) and doing everything that we can to care for our family - even if it's split between a couple of different residences for a few more months.

Life is good. Crazy, chaotic, and not always predictable, but it's good.

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. 

This is what happens....

.... when I leave the boys at home with The Dude while I go to work.



By the time I got home from work 3 hours later, Daniel was tying his new shoes. 
All by himself.
I'm not sure who is the most proud here....Daniel for learning it, The Dude for teaching him, or me - just because he's my kid and I'm allowed to be proud of him.
Have I mentioned how incredibly wonderful The Dude is lately? Because if I haven't, this is a good time to remind everyone - including myself.

We need to turn it around...

I went into the beginning of this new year full of hope and excitement. I really do think that there are going to be some wonderful things happening for me and my family this year. I was anxious to get this year started for so many positive reasons.

But then the new year started - and it didn't start well at all.

I found out on the second day of the year that one of my friends was going through a personal hell, and as a mother, it hit home for me.

On the third day, we got more devastating news that again, hit me so incredibly hard.

The Dude has been having problems with his truck. My "service engine" light was on. He has to get two teeth pulled tomorrow afternoon.

It just hasn't been a stellar start to the year. But at the same time I know that it could always be worse.

We spent part of the afternoon today working on his truck. Although we didn't get it fixed, we have now narrowed down the problem and are about 98% sure that we know what's wrong with it. He can drive it for now, for short distances, but it needs to be fixed. Of course that doesn't come for free, but we can get it taken care of in the next couple of weeks.

My "service engine" light? I had a sneaking suspicion desperate hope that it was something stupid - and it was. Turns out the gas cap wasn't on tight enough to make it happy. Stupid thing. But the light's off now, so it's good.

Tonight, however.....tonight was hard. As I mentioned the other day, a little boy who was the son of one of Sarah's mentors was killed in a horrible accident last week. As a mother, I can't even begin to imagine the impact of losing a child. I just can't wrap my head around it. After the kids got home from school and basketball practice tonight, Sarah announced that she wanted to go to the boy's viewing. I wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but she and I talked about it and she really wanted to go. I told her she would have to check with her father, since she was supposed to go to church with him tonight. He agreed that she could go, but only if I went with her. So plans quickly changed, Ex1 came and got Emily and Jared, I took Alex and Daniel over to The Dude's house, and Sarah and I went to the viewing.

It was so hard. So incredibly hard. Seeing the little boy's parents and sisters there, and the other mourners...looking at the pictures and the videos from his short little life....my heart shattered so many times tonight. Seeing the pain in his mother's eyes as she hugged me and thanked me for coming....I have tears running down my face as I'm typing this.

All I've been able to think for the past few days is "something's got to give" - there has been too much bad stuff to start off a new year. Way too much. It needs to change, and somehow we need to turn it around. So I started thinking - always dangerous for me to do.

Tomorrow, January 10, 2013 is my 2 year blogiversary. It's been 2 years since I started this crazy thing.  And Sunday, January 13, is both my 42nd birthday and the 2nd anniversary of the day that my 2nd divorce became final.

I need to celebrate. I want to celebrate. I want to be happy. While I can't forget about the bad stuff, I can't focus on it - and I don't want anyone else to focus on the bad stuff either.

So what do we do?

I know what I'm going to do. I've always been a huge fan of the "Pay it Forward" movement (as is my good friend over at Mom-troversial) and I'm going to start making a really conscious effort to pay it forward as much as I can and in as many ways as I can. I have a pile of stuff sitting by my front door already that needs to be donated - and it's going to go out this week. We have toys that the kids have outgrown or they don't like or whatever. Guess what? They're going out the door too.

I've made up my mind that I am going to do as much as I can for two of my favorite local organizations too - our homeless shelter and our women's safe house. I have my own personal reasons for choosing those two in particular, but they're going to be getting some of my time, my money, and any of my "stuff" that they can use.

So - for my blogiversary and for my birthday, this is the best gift that anyone could give to me (*cough* along with a pair of warm fuzzy slippers so that I don't have to keep wearing The Dude's that are 18 sizes too big for me *cough*). Go out and do something for someone. Donate something somewhere. Be nice to someone. Donate something that you don't need anymore instead of selling it. Volunteer your time. If you have the cash, make a donation to a local organization that needs it. There are so many ways that we can make someone else's life just a little bit easier, but we overlook those things so often in our hurry to deal with our own lives. Pay it forward, people. Please.

So go and do it, and tell me what you did. Leave it in a comment here, post it on my facebook wall, send me an email, whatever. Tell the world that you did it, and maybe you'll inspire someone else to do the same thing.

I have to keep him.

The stockings were hung
'cross the doorway with care....

I kind of hinted around last night about a super secret project that I had finished, but I couldn't say anything about it yet.

Part of what I finished was getting all of our Christmas stockings hung up and ready to go. Since we don't have a fireplace, I have to improvise. In our old house, I hung them down the staircase, but in this house I just go across the doorway between the front rooms instead. It works, and they're up high enough that the kids can't mess around with them without climbing - and for the most part they know better than to do that.

Anyway, I decided that since it appears that The Dude is going to be a permanent fixture - he needed a stocking too.

How's that for cementing a relationship? No marriage, nothing official or on paper or anything like that, but a homemade Christmas stocking instead....

I told him that this means that I have to keep him - because I don't go through all of that work for just anyone.

Hey, it's a step, right?

Not sure if he's more proud of the stocking
or his silly football team.

Something cool happened today...

I'm not a "big blogger". I don't have millions, or even tens of thousands of followers.

There are over 2400 people who "follow" me on facebook, but I know that not all of them actually do. And I think that the last time I checked I had something like 140 people following the actual blog. There are more through feedburner and twitter. But I don't know how many people actually pay attention and read what I babble about on a mostly-daily basis.

I don't do this for the numbers, or the fame and glory (ha!) - I do it because it's fun. It's a neat way for me to sort of have a virtual scrapbook of things that we have done as a family and of the random thoughts that clutter my head at times. And yes, the interaction with people is really stinkin' cool.

But today, I noticed something - and I happened to notice it at the time when it actually occurred.

For the first time since I started this blog in January 2011, I got 5000 views in a month. Personally, I think that's pretty cool.

But at the same time, it's not that important to me. Fun, yes. Interesting, yes. Important? Not so much.

What is important to me as I sit here and type away is to assure you that what you see is what you get with me. I don't make up stories to amuse anyone, I don't embellish the truth, I don't hide things that might make me look bad - I am and always have been 100% honest with every word that I've written here. Because in the end, I do this for me - but I am thankful that each and every one of you is along for the ride.

And for your comic relief - and partially what inspired this post (heard it in the van today as I was racing from one place to another....)

It's official

My baby.....

....is now a kindergartner. Today was his last day of preschool.

I'm not sure where the time has gone, but it has really gone fast! He's going to be 5 years old in less than a month - and it seems like he was just born yesterday! I usually don't get emotional over the "big milestones" like this, but I'll admit it - it happened today. I don't know if it's because he's my youngest or what, but I've been all sorts of sentimental today.

After all of the kids got home from school and we ate supper, we went to the library for a little bit and then went to the park. The Dude met us there and played for a while before we came home.

After we got home, all of the kids got baths, and somehow managed to save me enough hot water that I could get a shower too - after spending most of the afternoon mowing my yard and my neighbor's yard, I definitely needed one.

Tomorrow's going to be more of the usual, minus taking Daniel back and forth to school, but plus a "carnival" and a concert tomorrow evening. I am so looking forward to summer vacation for the kids - even though there will be more bickering and fighting, at least we won't be running around quite so much. Or if we are, it will be for things that we want to do, not things that we have to do.