A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

I haven’t gotten much work done today, but I did get a few things accomplished. Namely, applying for various types of public assistance. That’s something that I had hoped I would never have to do again, but the way things are going, it’s the only way I’m going to be able to keep my family up right now. I just have to keep telling myself that I’m not one of those people who sits on their asses and milks the system for all it’s worth. I’ve always worked for a living unless I had a legitimate reason not to, and I’ve paid plenty of taxes.

Same goes for Hubby, but he’s taking it pretty hard too. He’s in a lot of pain, and he’s had to rely on friends and family to get things done. Between that and not being physically able to support the family, he has been really depressed. I’ve been trying to spend as much time with him as I can, hiding my own emotions and doing everything in my power to take his mind off of things. Between all that and playing host to various visitors and houseguests, I’m seriously drained.

And now I’ve got to dig up all the information they need to process my applications for assistance. I need to tally up my earnings for the past six months, and find all of my receipts for expenses such as Internet access and office supplies. I also need to find utility bills, check stubs, and all sorts of other stuff. And with all that’s been going on for the past few months, I’ve hardly filed anything, so that’s going to be a job in and of itself.

There’s just so much that I need to do, and I’m having a hard time pulling myself together to do it all. All I can do is keep fighting the good fight and hope I don’t end up in a padded room when it’s all said and done.

Life has been really, really sucky (for lack of a better word) lately. Hubby has been very sick, and we’re not sure what the problem is. The doctor called it chronic diarrhea due to his lack of a gall bladder and muscle spasms in his back, but neither of us is convinced. He’s had to miss a lot of work because of it, and I’m sure they’ll let him go when he does go back. They’ve already fired him once when he came back from being out with an abcessed tooth, but he talked them into giving him another chance. I doubt it will work again, though.

Whatever the problem is this time, he’s been in terrible shape. He’s been in lots of pain, and has spent most of the time lying around. He’s even had to get his brothers to cut and split wood for him, and it’s about to drive him crazy that he can’t do it himself. At least his brothers are actually helping this time. Normally they would make up some excuse and he would be on his own.

We’re seriously scraping to pay the bills, because his pay has been next to nothing. And I haven’t been getting much writing done, either. My clients are getting less and less understanding, and really, who could blame them? There are plenty of crooks and liars on the Internet, and they really have no way of knowing that I’m not one of them. Sure, I’ve been honest in my dealings with them for years now, but people can change. I know that from experience.

My nerves have been in a shambles. Sleep patterns have been erratic - one night I’ll be out before my head hits the pillow, and the next I’ll lie awake for hours wishing I had some good natural sleeping pills in the cabinet. And I haven’t been very good company at all. But I’ve got to find some way to pull it together and get some money coming in. I don’t have any choice, because Hubby’s future is very much up in the air.

Today I’m feeling better than I have been in a while, so hopefully I can get something accomplished. Or actually, a lot of somethings. I don’t mind being the breadwinner at all, but it’s just a matter of whether or not I can pull it off.

I’ve wanted to rearrange the living room for some time now. Hubby has said we would do it several times, but it never did happen. I thought it might actually get done this weekend, because he had some people here that could help. But I was wrong.

We had it all planned out. We were going to put the entertainment center along one wall, the couch along the opposite wall, and experiment with the chairs until we found the right places for them. The only thing holding us back was lack of a suitable electrical outlet where we wanted the entertainment center, and we came up with a couple of temporary fixes for that until we could install one.

But then Hubby’s brother pointed out that if we arranged things that way, there would be cords running across the floor in front of the front door when they played their precious video games. They don’t have wireless controllers for them, and it would cost more money than we could pay right now to get them. So I guess the whole plan is out of the question.

So I guess it’s back to the drawing board. One of these days I’m going to give the living room a complete makeover, with new paint on the walls, hardwood or laminate flooring, and maybe even some faux wood blinds on the windows. But for now, I would just like to find some other way to arrange the furniture so that things wouldn’t seem so cramped.

I’m really beginning to hate water. It has caused my family an unreal amount of trouble lately. If you didn’t have to have it to live and shower and such, I think I would just swear it off for good.

After we got our water running again, we ended up with a leak going to the washing machine. Hubby wasn’t here when I discovered it, so I had to turn the water off until he got home. He finally got that fixed, and then yesterday it rained a lot and the basement flooded. Not only did we have the obvious problem of getting the water out of there, it also turned over our new pressure tank and tore up some pipes.

So once again, the water was off all day yesterday while we were pumping the water out of the basement. And it’s still off while Hubby and his brother are down there trying to get the plumbing fixed. This sucks!

In addition to all that, the phone keeps ringing this morning, and I just don’t feel like talking. Whether it’s bill collectors, family delivering the latest news from back home or a friend calling to ask about the best prenatal vitamins, I’m just not interested. I’ve got work to do and things to worry about, and I just want to be left alone.

Hi there. Remember me? I used to blog here. Haven’t been doing that so much lately, though.

The new year hasn’t been kind to me so far, and that’s why I haven’t been around. I could write a big, long post about it, but I don’t think I will. I’d rather just forget about it all, and bits and pieces will probably come out in future posts anyway. So I’ll try not to bore you to death with details here.

But in summary, I’ve been horribly ill, finally got on medication for depression and panic attacks, and had to contend with major plumbing problems all last week. I spent a lot of time when I didn’t feel like doing anything but lying in bed waiting around in various hardware stores, looking at fancy Whirlpool dishwashers and Toto toilets that I can’t afford while waiting on employees to help me. A few hundred dollars later, we finally got the water going again.

Things are finally somewhat back to normal, so maybe I’ll get something accomplished today. The jury’s still out on whether or not the medication (Prozac, to be specific) will help. I started it on New Year’s Day, so the two week mark is coming up, and that’s how long the doctor said it would take to kick in. I hope it does the trick.

This holiday season has been a doozy for my family. The thing that I still don’t feel inclined to write about is improving, not completely resolved, but considerably better. But it has left me in a very stressed and depressed state of mind. I’m trying to get through it as best I can, because money is insanely tight right now and I can’t bring myself to make things worse by going to the doctor. Maybe someday soon.

As for Christmas itself, it was… interesting. We weren’t able to get Pumpkin much, but we did manage to get her one of the big things on her list (a portable DVD player). She was happy with what she got, but commented that Santa didn’t bring her much. I’m really beginning to hate the whole Santa notion, and Hubby and I have decided that the next time she asks if he exists we’re going to tell her the truth. Then maybe she won’t have such high expectations, and won’t be disappointed.

The biggest Christmas present we got was a flooded basement. And when I say flooded, I mean flooded. It has flooded a few times, but never this badly. There was lots of snow still laying on the ground from the week before, and we got a buttload of rain on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The trenches we had dug were full of snow, so they were no help. We had to get out in the rain shortly after opening gifts and clear those trenches out, then Hubby picked up two of his brothers and had them come help finish the job and get some of that water out. Once again, I’m thankful that we had a pump to pump it out with, because there’s no way we could have rented one on Christmas.

With the water being pumped out, we tried to relax for the rest of the day. We had a scrumptious Honey Baked half ham for dinner. I cooked it all day in the crock pot, and it came out nice and tender. We gave some of it to Hubby’s family, Pumpkin ate one piece, and Hubby and I had the rest of it gone by the next day. Too bad we didn’t have some Solo Slim on hand - maybe it would have lasted a little longer.

After dinner we went to the inlaws’ house to play cards. Then we came back home, had a few drinks, and hit the hay. All in all, it wasn’t a bad Christmas. We got to spend time together as a family, and as far as I’m concerned that’s what it’s all about. I just hope next Christmas is less stressful.

The other day, Hubby’s cousin asked if he could put a pot of water on the wood stove to keep the air from getting so dry in here. I was happy to oblige, and wondered why I hadn’t thought of it myself. So I went straight to the kitchen, filled up a pot, and put it there on the condition that he help keep water in it.

A couple of days later, Hubby went to put some more water in it. I was in front of the bathroom mirror putting on some makeup, and he came in there and said, “What’s this in the water?” He brought the pot in, and I saw a bunch of blue stuff floating on the bottom of the half-full pot. Yuck!

I don’t know what it is, but I do know one thing: It’s high time to start looking at water filters. Whatever that stuff might be, I really have no desire to be drinking it, or particularly to have Pumpkin drinking it. We don’t drink much tap water anyway, but I like to be able to without having to worry, you know?

Anybody have any idea what that could be? I’m assuming that it’s some sort of mineral, but everyone I’ve asked doesn’t know what it is. If anyone can shed some light on this, please let me know in the comments!

I saw a huge flock of crows the other day, and realized that they were probably making a pit stop on their way to fly south for the winter. I sort of wished I could sprout wings and go with them. I don’t like winter as it is, and the weather here is shaping up to be particularly unpleasant this year. It has already been quite cold, and we’ve narrowly missed quite a bit of snow and ice so far.

I doubt I’ll be growing wings any time soon. And I’m certainly not one of these well-to-do folks who can just pick up and reserve one of the best hotels New Orleans or Orlando or Atlanta has to offer for a week or two. So it looks like I’m stuck toughing it out.

The idea of getting away for a while sure sounds good. Things are getting a little better on the home front, but it would still be nice to have a change of scenery. Guess I’ll have to settle for the occasional trip down the mountain for now, and hope and pray that a vacation is in the cards for next year.

You may have noticed that I have been posting in radical spurts lately. For that I apologize.

There’s just a lot of crap going on in my life right now. I’ve written a little about the problems that I personally have been having, and they’re not really getting much better. I’ve had a good day or two, but I’m beginning to lose hope that things will ever get back to the way they were. And I’m also dealing with some problems that I really don’t feel comfortable writing about.

If it was all about me, I might be willing to share them. But it’s not. It involves someone who I love very dearly, and I’m not sure that person would want me to write about what’s been going on. I don’t want to ask, either, because they’re going through so much right now.

I will say that the whole ordeal is making it even harder for me to get any writing done, when I can even be in front of the computer. But I’m hanging on for dear life, because writing is the only thing that I can fathom doing with my life.

Anyway, I’ve got missed deadlines to attend to. So that’s all for now.

I swear there’s a black hole somewhere in my bathroom. Things in there just keep disappearing at random intervals. And it’s driving me nuts!

Several months ago, I had a bottle of Neutrogena foundation. It was a new formula that a survey company had sent me to try out and give them my opinion on, and I dearly loved it. It was honestly the best foundation I’ve ever used. Well, I got to use it for a few weeks, and then it suddenly disappeared. I looked all over the bathroom for it, even dug through the trash, and it was nowhere to be found.

A while later, my tweezers disappeared. That was very strange because I never leave them sitting out, they’re always in the container I keep stuff like that in when I’m not using them. And then a week or two ago, my acne treatment was nowhere to be found.

I’ve lost several other things in there, including a wide-toothed comb. And I have yet to figure out where they go. There’s a gap between the the end of the counter and the wall where I’ve found some stuff, but none of the stuff I’ve mentioned has turned up there. So there is either a black hole, or we’ve got some very vain ghosts in this house. Whatever it is, I wish it would just stop stealing my stuff already!