Are We There Yet?

For the very few people who  might check in here and aren’t on Facebook,  I have a new blog:

1newthingaday@wordpress.com

I may still update this one occasionally with topics or pictures that don’t go anywhere else, but my main focus will be on the new one.  So come visit 🙂

Happy New Year everyone!  I hesitate to say this because 1) for so many of my friends and for the country as a whole it was not the case at all and 2) I totally fear jinxing myself into another “worst year ever” but for our family, 201o really was a pretty awesome year.  Life was stable, which doesn’t seem to happen to us often. We had everything we needed and most of what we wanted.   We traveled and had fun and stresses were generally transient. Our dogs and family members who were alive at the beginning of 2010 are still alive at the beginning of 2011 and all seem to be doing well.   Other than a brief bout of recurrent back pain and some too-high medical bills which we can fortunately afford to pay even though we don’t want to, we stayed relatively healthy.   There were no weather or housing or auto disasters.   The older DD’s had great years and the younger one has at least made friends and seems to be settling down into herself and maybe even starting to like herself.   As a brief follow-up to that, since we had the “come to Jesus” big blow-up right after Thanksgiving,  her attitude has really changed for the positive.   For awhile I was hesitant to say that, thinking it wouldn’t last, but it has, for over a month.  Not to say that she is always sunshiny-sweet and full of rainbows and unicorns, but she has at least stopped treating us like something she stepped in out in the barnyard.  The contempt is gone, the sneers and the nastiness and she really has communicated normally and even cheerfully at times.  We will get the 1st semester grades next week and I’m sure they are not going to be good, but it will not be for lack of effort on anyone’s part, and I believe we at least finished out the semester with her realization that her teachers and her parents are on her side and trying to be her advocates, but that part of the parenting job involves  “parenting” types of things, such as following up on her homework and studying, making sure she isn’t spending an entire evening on Deviant Art when she failed the last math quiz and the test over that same material is tomorrow  or calling her out when she gets mad and posts something snarky about her best friend on Facebook.

So it is actually with some regret that I put 2010 away and look toward 2011.   I have no resolutions.  I’ve accepted at this point that I’m never going to be anything but overweight, and in fact I don’t want to lose too much weight because I don’t want to buy new clothes.   I only keep what fits so I don’t have a closet full of “maybe someday” clothing and I kind of like what I do have.  I would like to be in better shape before we go to Ecuador, which is in the Andes, because just keeping up on flat ground is difficult, and as we discovered a few months ago, mountains are impossible.    The plan is to start working with the PT’s at work to get me to a point where I can at least walk around, get where I need to go, and enjoy some siteseeing.    I’m working on some financial goals,  particularly given my status as a contractor with no safety net (workers comp, disability, unemployment), but am feeling relatively satisfied with how that’s going.  I do know that I’m not going to fritter away my 2% social security reduction this year….paying those self-employment taxes makes me even more aware of where my money is going, and my 2% is going right back into my savings.   And personally, I can think of lots of things that I “should” work on about myself, but not much that I’m really motivated to work on right now.   But if I do come up with anything, I will be sure to let you know 🙂

Just to fill some space and keep the blog alive, here are a couple of amusing stories I’ve heard lately from others.

Those of you from small towns,  especially Wendy from Midwest Green (the one who now lives in my childhood best friend’s house), might appreciate this one.  My in-laws reside in a small town not far from Wendy’s and they actually had a crime a couple months ago….a bank was robbed.  My SIL texted her 2 college-age children  who are residing in other states and they BOTH immediately texted back….  “Who did it?”

The second one is from DD2, who has made some extra money this semester working for an event staff company….ushering for things like  sports events and concerts.   One of their regular assignments is to work the Citadel home football games.  DD2 was explaining that unlike at most colleges, all Citadel cadets are required to attend every home football game.   No matter whether they feel like it, what the weather is, or if the team sucks (which it does) they are to be there from the opening kick-off through the final buzzer.  They attend in uniform, march in formation and have assigned seating.  And unlike at most football games where the stadium staff have to watch and prevent people from sneaking IN, at Citadel they have staff assigned to prevent the cadets from sneaking OUT….not her responsibility, thankfully!

One of the side effects of having a child out of the country is that it forces you to get her Christmas done early, because you have to ship in plenty of time.   We are primarily paying her graduate school application fees, but did want her to have some gifts to open, and a stocking (although we didn’t send HER stocking….I bought a cheap one at Walgreens).   We also sent a few things she can use as gifts for others (ie, USC Gamecocks t-shirts).   So after buying and wrapping and smooshing it all into a box, I weighed it and calculated postage online.  The $80 fee was actually less than the 100 I’d anticipated…..hooray, for the “small, light things” approach.   And then just to make sure I was getting the best deal, I checked what it would cost through UPS….$477!!  For the economy shipping!!  For that I could almost buy  ticket,  and deliver it myself.

Now that we have that taken care of,  we can focus on finishing up for everyone else, and getting ready for the faculty open house we host Thursday.   Its pot-luck, so other than ordering the ham and getting in paper goods, that basically involves cleaning.  Has anyone seen my elves?

The last day of November…….

this was a long one.

Well, today is a brighter day.  After a very long, insightful, tearful conversation which was actually initiated by DD4 about her behavior I feel like we at least made some headway.  It will not be as simple as “OK, I’ll just act better” (if it was, it wouldn’t be this entrenched), but she is at least making an effort and we’re all gaining some insight.

I’m with Alto2.  I’m sick of daily blogging and sick of my homelife,  or more specifically DD4 who is unfortunately the only child who lives here.  Outside of home, she is charming, funny, and we hear things like the recent text DH received from another Mom while she was with them….”Your daughter is one of my favorite people!” . We here how well-liked and funny and thoughtful she is.    For us she is full of contempt, disgust (treating us like we’re a pile of dog doo she stepped in), uncommunicative, sarcastic, sullen, ungrateful, and purposefully hurtful.  I don’t mean occasionally. I don’t mean when she has a bad mood.  I mean daily….to the point when she is NOT like that (ie, on the recent mountain trip and when we were with family over Thanksgiving) DH and I both look at each other in amazement and cross our fingers that it might last, but it never does.    And yes, she (we) have been through counseling and is being reevaluated by a psychologist sometime within the next couple of months, and I’m really not looking for advice, questions or suggestions.

But I am just totally done dealing with her right now and am pretty miserable because of her. I would honestly rather be at work and not even bother coming home.   I’m tired of nonstop trying to engage her, to communicate, to balance setting limits with constant walking on eggshells, with putting up with the sneers and glares and obvious hatred all while she sits around watching my TV, using my computer, playing with the video games I buy, while we do her laundry, chauffer her around,  and try desperately to find things she likes to eat (which consists of junk food plus 2 or 3 other things), help her and show interest in her academics,  and devise ways to get through to her.   So at this point, I’m on strike and plan to have nothing more to do with her than I legally have to as long as she continues to treat me this way.  And I don’t think that involves any of the above.

Still Thanksgiving-ing with the fam.  I’ll be back tomorrow!