You be the judge

OK here's a couple of pictures for you all who have read my blog. The pretty Blond haired woman is me the good looking guy is the guy that will be getting DUMPED on his behind soon if this crap doesn't stop and the ugly female is the witch he has been having an affair with online. you be the judge. He tells me he doesn't like dark haired women well shes dark headed alright and quite frankly I'm pissed. He still swears there's nothing going on yet last night when we went to bed (I was half asleep already) he started moaning and groaning so I asked him what he was doing as he was wooling on the bed and he stoped. What does that tell you? OK he has me and I'm up for it any time day or night yet he has to talk to THAT and get off on images of her in his head while I'm RIGHT NEXT TO HIM IN BED???? Hell No!!! I WILL NOT STAND for that crap any more.

Here's the pictures ... you be the judge...

And it goes on....

My last blog took place a day before a major blow up with me and Clint. I kept rolling things around in my head about him and that female he was chatting with online and finally blew my stack. I was on the phone with my mom trying to figure out a way to get us all back to PA and the more I thought about him and that female the more pissed I got about it. At that time I had been sitting right next to him able to see every thing he typed to her easily and there were quite a few things he wrote that really stuck in my crawl, as well as things she wrote back to him. From where I'm sitting and what I saw of it, she didn't know about me and the kids until him and I had our talk out in the parking lot so I really couldn't get pissed at her when she didn't know, however once he DID tell her he was living with me as my boyfriend, I had every right to get pissed when she continued to tell him to move to El Paso TX with her and leave me and the kids. So... I LOST IT! I told my Mom that it would just be me and the kids moving to PA he was leaving me for that B**** and for all I knew he was already Scr***** the f***ing C*** and I had had it I didn't care and I just wanted to come home. My Mom told me she would have a UHaul for me at the end of April so I wouldn't have to stay here to long just to chill out and I would be home soon. Me and her hung up then and the fight was on yet again. Of course I had been yelling all of that at the top of my lungs because I was so damn pissed, so he did hear everything I had to say to my mom and he got pissed at me because I was "acting psycho" as he put it (anything I do in anger or jealousy is considered psycho by him usually because I can still throw one hell of a fit when I'm pissed, throwing things, acting irrational, punching doors, walls, dressers, pretty much any inanimate object that gets in my way when I'm that angry, I have yet to hit a person though). Clint started packing his things up in his blankets, disconnected his computer, all while we were yelling at each other about how wrong the other was to be pissed off. I told him to go F*** that Wh*** for a while so he could see exactly what he just lost because I was NOT going to be cheated on, lied to and then left in the dirt (or something to that effect anyway). I had him so pissed at me right back he was throwing his shirts at me and ended up breaking one of the drawers on the dresser in our bedroom when he kicked it. Him and I continued to scream and yell at each other for about and hour, me at him over that female he was talking to and him at me about how I have no right to be pissed when I talk to guys online. (Which I still don't see the similarities there because the guys I talk to are all old enough to be my father and we talk about Clint and my kids or their wives or girlfriends and their kids, not about me moving in with them or restoring their classic cars together like he was doing with her and I never once sent anyone of them a half naked picture of me like he did with her and half of those pictures he sent to her were pictures that I took for him just the night before and with my camera!) ANYWAY... I told him to stop doing what he was doing for just a second that I wasn't going to stop him from leaving but I did want to know where he was going so I knew he would be safe (I do love him and don't want to see him hurt or on the news found dead on the side of the road somewhere) and he looked at me funny so I told him I knew he was going and I was hurt by all of what had been going on not just our fighting for the last 3 days but the whole damn mess, that I do love him and didn't want him to go but I did need to know he would be alright when he left. Clint asked me about what me and the kids were going to do and I told him not to worry about us we would be fine the only thing I was worried about was him because I know he isn't the type of man to leave his family like he was going to do and never look back. Clint is the type of man he would get down the road quite a ways, calm down some and think "S*** I scr**ed that up" . He would think he scr**ed up so bad he wouldn't be able to come back or even call to talk because that is the type of man he is. He calmed down at that point and told me he wasn't going to leave but we had to figure out how we're going to get out of New Mexico, to PA. Clint left his computer unplugged for the rest of the day and we sat and talked some more. We talked about what all we need to get rid of so we don't have to take so much with us when we go and we talked about the issue of my Ex-husband and the older two boys and what problems we face with my ex. We talked about going to the beach and the time we will get to spend dating like we haven't had here. We set the time to move for June at the latest. For the last two weeks we have been back to normal no Internet guys for me and no Internet girls for him and we have been getting along wonderfully, even going to bed at the same time and curling up with each other in that cuddle we had before all the distance began between us. So I don't understand why yesterday I began to feel it all begin again. I was depressed all day yesterday but I think I hid it well because we still laughed and joked and picked on each other like we did before, but that dread was sinking in so fast and I couldn't stop it. We went to bed like we have been doing for the last two weeks and I thought we were OK. I had to get up to go to the bathroom and check on the kids then I went back to bed and a few minutes later Clint was up and out of the room. At first I didn't think anything of it but he didn't come back to bed like he had been doing. I was wide awake any way so I walked into the living room and he was quickly shutting down windows on his computer. I don't know what was going on but it really brings back the thought that he is doing it again. The thought that he is talking to her again or someone new this time and he is being more careful about it so I won't know. I don't know what to think about it and now that we have been through one incident already I can't help but think it's happening again. We were doing great for two weeks not a single thing wrong with us during that time not a clue as to anything at all bothering him. Am I over reacting again? I just don't know. When trust is broken it takes time to heal the wounds and gain that trust back and two weeks is not enough to do that. So would he be that callous as to begin talking to her again or someone else this time? I like to think he wouldn't but I just don't know any more. I do know that when the time comes to move I am prepared for him to tell me he isn't going. I wish I had something better to write here other than all this boo hoo stuff, but for now it's all I've got.

update

This is a continuation to my "Is it Over?" Blog. Clint and I had a blow up the other day which almost ended up in him leaving that night at about 2 am. How it all started was I was doing my "I'm staying out of the way" thing but I had an attitude about it and Clint had been sitting here looking depressed as all hell but I ignored it for the time because I didn't know how to fix it. Finally after about an hour of us ignoring each other he got up from his chair at the desk where our computers sit and he walked out of the apartment and I followed him. when I got to him, I told him if he wanted to leave to go because I can't keep him here. Which is the ultimate truth of the whole situation. I can't keep him here if he wants to leave. So finally we talked about what has been bugging us both... we are trapped in a hell hole in good old New Mexico "The Land of Entrapment". We talked about him sending me and the two kids at home to PA where my family is and that this is what we need to do to set us straight again. He told me that we are his family any way you look at it that we are it. When I first told him if he wanted to leave to get out of here to just go he had said he had no where to go that he wouldn't be able to go far from us any way even if he did want to leave and that he loves me and the kids. We love him too, Very much. When we began to talk about the move he had said that its just to get me and the kids to PA and he would bring all of our things to us in a Uhaul once we got there if that was what I wanted or he would get a moving company to bring it to us. That's where I began to freak out in my own head. To me it sounded like he was done with and that was it go back to Philadelphia and forget me. So I got upset and began to cry in the bedroom and it just got worse from there. I have never been able to get out my feelings in a good way so every time I would try to say why this all bothered me so bad it came out all wrong and Clint had finally had enough and headed out the door while I was crying and holding in screams of hurt at the same time(NOT a good combo by the way). I ran to the door after he walked out and at first I locked it and cried even harder because I knew that I had just made sure that this was it. Then I unlocked the door to chase him down because I do love him so much. So much, I felt my heart break. That is the most horrible feeling in the world and I never want to feel that ever again. So we talked some more about all of it and I thought we would be alright from there. Today we talked some more and I asked him about this other female and he told me "she doesn't know me she never will know me she is just someone to blow off some steam that's it." I want to believe so bad that, that is all it is, but right now with as cold and distant as things are I am having a hard time believing. I love him with all my heart and don't want to loose what we do have and yet I can't believe this will all work. In my head I am the problem that's the only way I know how to think about all of this. That somewhere I am the one who has messed all of this up. Clint told me today this isn't because of me or the kids just that something needs to change because we are dying here. I cant deny that or the fact that we need to do something to fix us now before its too late but I cant let go. I am so afraid even still that if I let go that's it..... When him and I were talking about this I understood all of what he was saying to me but once I had the chance to sit and think about all of it I can't see it now. In my head it is that I am too screwed up from all of my problems in my past for him to be able to Love me in return and so he has found a way to get us out of here before telling me that its over. that's what my tiny little messed up mind is screaming at me. I have been crying and beating my self up for the last few hours and know that now I need to write or it will consume me so wholly I will end up freaking out again and causing more damage to our already fastly crumbling relationship. Is there a way to fix this? I have no idea but I have my hopes while preparing for the worst. I hope we can be like my Mom and my Step Dad, who separated for 2 years, going so far as to file for a divorce, and are now moving back in together and buying a new house. My heart tells me this will work but my mind says it wont. Which do I believe, my heart or my mind? My mind wants to believe that everything will be alright but how do you make your mind believe the near impossible? I'm not stupid and I'm not a fool to believe everything someone tells me no matter how much I want to but how do you tell your heart that this is almost impossible? Tonight I got the chance to tell Clint that I talked with my grandparents about moving back home and they had said I can;t live with them and his reply was so cold it stabbed right through my heart yet again. He said " So call them and tell them to come get your ass". So after a comment like that and all the coldness in the reply how can I believe this plan is going to work? I am so confused right now its killing me. I don't think we should just throw away the last two years we have had but it seems like its going that way. I got pissed at the comment that was made and started to just go in the bed room to cry and then I got pissed at myself came out of the room adn told him " I told you earlier that if you wanted to leave just go..." adn his reply was " Oh Jeasus Christ are we going to do this again?" so at this point in time since I began the blog over 2 hours ago I have no idea where this is all going. I wish there was a God and he loved me because right now I sure don't feel very loved. All I really know right at this moment in time is my heart lies in shatters on the floor and I don't know what to do to fix it. I love him with all my heart and don't want to give away what we did have until a couple of weeks ago, I am willing to give this seperation a chance, and I know it won't work unless the coldness between us heals soon. I just wish he would give us he chance to heal it instead of remaining so cold becuase i cant fix the coldness on my own........

~SIGH~ I feel so much better....

I love getting out and getting my hands dirty, digging in the dirt and planting. It always helps to relieve the stresses of life for me and this morning was my time to be able to do that. I don't have a garden of my own (yet) but I help my neighbor the kids have dubbed Granny Shirley. This morning she called me to ask for help digging the small trench she needed for her flowers to which I gladly replied "Sure I'll be down in just a few minuets" and hurriedly got the kids ready to go outside for some digging. Granny Shirley is turning 70 this year so when she asks for help with something I gladly help her or send the kids to do what she needs them to do. I have been waiting for her to call and ask me to help her dig this year since the weather turned nice and with everything that has been going on this came at just the right moment. The digging of the trench didn't take as long as it usually does but once it was ready to go we put in the peonies and the peat moss filled the dirt around them got them watered and made a little dirt border to help hold the water in. The exercise was great and I hope we will be doing more of the same soon since she still has some rose seeds to plant as well( the apartment mannager gave them to her) how that works i'm really not all that sure but she said we're going to give it a shot. I'm not going to make this a long tireing blog like I usually do since I have some cleaning to do aorund here still but I do feel so much better now that I have had my chance to get dirty and work off some of my frustrations. Maybe now I can go back to being normal agin and see what Clint and I can do to fix what we need fixed with us. Enjoy :)

Dreams

Have you ever had your dreams become reality? Unfortunately I have that happen more often than not and usually its not a good thing. I have been having the same dream over and over for about two months now and I am dreading it coming to life. Its not really horrible like someone dying or getting seriously hurt, but it does concerns one of my boyfriends friends. I'm going to call him Joe for now and I will call his wife Betty. My friendship with them has mainly been online but Clint's friendship with them, has been for most of his and Joe's lives. So bear with me... Here's the history.... Joe and his wife have been having a really rough time of things, going so far as Joe leaving. When Joe left it was because the verbal, mental, and emotional part of things was just getting to be to much. I have talked with both of them about how each one feels during some of the arguments they have had before they split up, and there were many times that I would feel frustrated because they are both great people, but they were both blaming the other for what the problems were, making it hard to tell what was going on. I usually will not side with either party in cases like this as it tends to cause problems with the friendships, so I stayed neutral and would not repeat what each of them had said. I have met Joe in person and have seen him with two of their children, so when I began hearing from Betty that Joe was beating the kids and leaving bruises I found that hard to believe. Joe did not come off as that kind of person when I met him last summer during his visit here to see Clint and his parents. I trust my gut feelings as they rarely prove me wrong, (unless my heart is involved but that's for another day) and Joe just does not come across as an abuser. I have not met Betty face to face so I cannot say anything about her character or what my gut feelings are where she is involved. Since the split they have finally started to get along better then they were when they were together, which I feel is a good thing. But... (those dang "buts" that always end up in there) when they first split no one had heard from Joe for quite sometime so all we were getting was Betty's side of the story and quite frankly what I was hearing made us concerned for Joe. Don't get me wrong Betty is a good person, But some of the things she was telling all of us were not what you would call "reasonable" thoughts of revenge. The whole reason for the revenge she was saying she was going to have on Joe was because when he left he retained custody of two of their children and there was nothing she could do about it. Joe is a good father to the children, the only reason he didn't take their youngest is their youngest is still breastfeeding and he did not want to interrupt that. However they are talking and "seem" to be getting along a lot better now. OK onto the dream part of it.... For the last two months now I have had the recurring dream that Joe has moved back to Farmington to live with his parents because things in Oklahoma have gotten to be too much. In my dream Joe moved here without his children and is going through a really nasty, messy divorce with Betty who has lied on the stand making Joe out to be some kind of monster. He lost his children because of the lies she has told and almost lost his freedom as well because the lies were that intense. So he moved here to get far enough away from her so she could not accuse him of anything worse than what she already had. Joe was a shell of the Joe I had met not to long ago in my dream. He was pale, depressed more than usual, locked himself away in his parents house when he wasn't looking for work, and you could tell when you saw him he had not been sleeping much at all. Betty had called Clint and I to "inform" us of all the things that Joe had supposedly done to her and to "warn us" not to trust him "Because he will steal from you and leave you in ruins like he did me" were her exact words in my dream. She had told us that Joe had taken all kinds of things from her house when he left and he would do the same to us, but the funny thing was Joe had moved here with his own money (what little he had after the lawyers) and what he did bring wasn't much at all. He had clothes to put on his back,, a bed a dresser, a coffee table (not the one described by Betty), and a small TV (the one she claimed he had taken was a 60 in screen TV yet he didn't have that with him). What little money he did have when he had gotten here went into his parents food supply and a little bit of gas in his car so he could look for a job, totaling to $100 and not the $3,000 that Betty was claiming to Clint and I one the phone. Joe had not said much to us about what Betty had pulled on him but we both new it wasn't good. Clint would go over to see him everyday after he got off of work and me and the kids would go over there every day to try and help Joe's mom with Joe's depression (I'm not a councilor but I love to talk to people to try and help them in the ways I have learned to help myself). Betty would call over there numerous times a day to make sure Joe knew "exactly" how far she would go to "make him pay" for thinking he could leave her before she was done ruining him and she would laugh which would only make it worse. That's where the dream usually ends and I really don't want to finish it either because I know how bad depression can get. The last thing I want to see is Joe hurt or worse because he is such a good guy. I have told Clint about the dreams and he has told me that it is very realistic as that is the true nature of Betty. She can be a good person until she wants something and she will do everything in her power to get it. that she is a conniving woman when she sets her mind to it. I have yet to meet her in person so I really can't say but for my dreams to hit home for Clint like that it scares me to know that it will probably come to be reality before long. As much as I like Joe for the person I have seen in him and what I have heard from Betty so far, I don't want this dream to come true because what could be the end of it does not bode well at all for Joe.

Is it over?

These pics are Me the day of My Aunt Judy's funeral and Clint playing the 360 with the kids. I guess I'm just confused right now about my relationship with Clint. We have been together for about 2 years now and all of a sudden he is becoming distant and acting like everything I say to him is wrong or just a major annoyance. Why can't he just tell me that I'm bugging him? The other day I was trying to watch a movie that I have on my computer and I just happened to glance over and notice the email he was sending to some other female (that isn't a family member to either of us) and in it he said "I sent you some dirty pics of me". Instantly I was pissed off and I shut off my movie got up from the desk and started cleaning (again since it had already all been done earlier) and that didn't help any I was so pissed I had to leave the house. He doesn't know I saw the email or what it said as he wasn't paying any attention to me at all (I guess he figured I was so involved in the movie I wouldn't notice ?). The day before that incident he woke up in a bad mood and was taking it out on everyone. I had been after Blaid all morning to do his work (which is normal), Clint had only been up for an hour at that time, and he got after Blaid to get it done, which is no big deal he is Dad to my kids I don't worry about him getting after them ever, but then all of a sudden it was "Fuck this shit! I'm outta here!" I was confused. I didn't know what had happened as no one said a word to him about it and Blaid was finally getting his work done without a problem. So what do I do? I ask him, as he's grabbing his keys, "where are you going baby?" and all he said was "Outside" and he left. about 20 minutes later I decided I was going to check on him to make sure he was OK and his car was gone and so was he. So now I'm pissed. He never leaves like that and there was nothing to provoke him to leave like that. He was gone for 6 hours no word no nothing. then when he came home he acted like nothing had ever happened and everything was normal. What the hell is that when guys do that? So after I got over my little snit fit I asked him what was going on and he told me I was always up his ass about something. WHAT??? I give him just as much space as he gives me I stay out of the way most of the time and I don't nag at him about these "mysterious Emails" so how am I up his ass? For 2 years I have treated him the same and never before was I up his ass so now I'm confused. What is going on here that I'm not seeing? For 2 years I have cooked his meals for him, gotten him refills on his drinks, rubbed his feet when they hurt left him be when he was IMing females that I could plainly see where hitting on him in chat, didn't say anything other than "I'm gonna kick that Bitches ass if she hits on you one more time while I'm sitting right her next to you", let it go when he would get INSANELY jealous over someone on World of Warcraft ( its an online game) who would flirt with me and he'd jump all over their ass and challenge them in PVP (No I do not instigate it any way. I am not one of those females that has to have constant attention or has to start fights to prove my man cares for me, I leave that up to my cousins back in Philly). I know that serving him his meals, doing his laundry for him, folding it and putting it away for him, and rubbing his feet for him is a 1950's type of woman thing, but that is what i choose to do for him. I am not subservient in that way because I do make him ask for it and when he expects it from me without a please or a thank you I make him give it before he gets it. I do not bow down to him that's not me But I do those things for him because it IS a form of respect. I never did these things for my Ex-Husband because I didn't respect him in any way I do however Respect Clint. Clint since he has been here has treated me with respect, spoiled the hell out of me and my kids, taken up the responsibility that my exes never will, and at the same time doesn't let me get away with the things he knows would be bad for us. So Why would things all of a sudden change like they have? When Clint first got here I didn't cater to him like I do now. We were just starting out in our relationship and we had to find what was comfortable for us. Once we got that all figured out, we made some adjustments to our form of respect for each other. We rarely ever fight or argue, in fact we have only had maybe 2 or 3 major arguments. For me to be as good of a person as I am with him is amazing I have many destructive traits (aside from drugs I never did like them so don't do them and won't do them, I watched my Father die because of them but that's for another Blog) so I really don't want to loose what we have with each other. Neither of us is looking for marriage we are both content to "live in sin", neither of us has ever been a cheater in the past, and we get along better than most couples. As far as sex goes, I love sex, I'm what some would call a borderline nympho but I remain loyal to anyone I am involved with, I don't go looking for it anywhere and every where that's not in my nature or my personality, Clint is a typical man when it comes to sex he enjoys sex just like any other man, but he doesn't HAVE sex all that often. We have gone for 3 months at a time before we have sex (and that has been the longest we have gone without until now) so no one can say I'm with him for the sex either because its not that. I never complain to him about the lack of sex because I understand where he is coming from, we have talked about it before but only because he brought up the subject not me. But here it is it is going on 4 months since the last time we have had sex and I am beginning to have my doubts, and then I see that condemning email that he sent off. Normally I would have just jumped up and hit him right in the nose as hard as I could and told him to get lost, but I want to try to work this all out with him. What is getting me though is all of it put together in my mind says "it's over don't fight it" and I am trying to deny that it is because of the whole "but what if it isn't?" thoughts. I had gotten and IM yesterday from someone I had talked to online since before I met Clint but hadn't heard from in almost a year which I didn't see anything wrong with it until the guy asked me what color panties I was wearing (come to find out he had been out of the country with the navy for the last year and he didn't know me and Clint were still together), and Clint got pissed when he saw what the guy had written. He wrote down the guys address and started writing to him himself while I was in the other room dealing with the kids. So to me that says he does care for me still but all the other things are still in the back of my mind and they are still bugging me. What do I think, what do I do, what do I say??? I can't tell him what to do or who to talk to that's not me. But it does piss me off when he can flirt, chat, and send "dirty Pics" to women but when someone asks me a stupid question like "so what color panties do you have on right now?" its not right. He never has told me I couldn't talk to someone but he has said to put a stop to it or he will. So how can I not be confused? Any input would be nice and any comments are welcome but please keep it clean and don't get all nasty about it I will delete anything that is hateful. Mandi

A day in the life of a Mom

I have this bad habit of reading everything and anything I can find when I get tired of reading my romance novels (or as Clint will call them my "educational" books). Today I was reading an article on moms and their "Dirty Little Secrets" and i thought to myself "Hey why not read the forums on this topic? I wonder what some of these "secrets" are?" So I clicked on the link for this topic and found some very interesting comments. Now I know that all women have their "secrets" on how to be a sane mom or their children, I have a lot of the same little secrets for myself to stay sane. So I didn't mind the read at all, I actually enjoyed the reading of the article as well as the forums. What I didn't like was the fact that the women out there who are so insecure in their own lives and wish for their secrets to remain hidden found it necessary to SLAM the other parents who were just stating their thoughts and feelings and what they consider their secrets. So I thought I would share my views on being a mom to four. My 2 youngest children wake up at roughly 7 am (sometimes its a little later sometimes a little earlier) and that's when its time for Mommy to wake up to get the cereal and milk and the glass of juice to go along with it ( for my 2 year old daughter she gets a glass of Pediasure since her eating habits are almost null and void some days), make the coffee, gather up all the dishes from the night before, fill the sink with dish soap (we don't have the luxury of a dish washer at the moment), tune the TV into PBS for the educational shows, smoke a cigarette while waiting for my computer to come on so I can get Blaid's school work for the day, find Blaid's pencils and crayons for his school work, and find the coffee cups for me and Clint for our morning coffee (Clint's on his days off or days when he goes into work later in the day.). Once my computer is done logging on I print out Blaid's papers for the day and set him up at the kitchen table to do his school work while Paige is set up with her dolls and her own papers, she likes to do color pages of princesses while Blaid does his school work and it helps her to feel included. Then its into the kitchen for me to start on the dishes which don't always get past filling the sink as there are always a number of things that come up, Paige pulls Blaid's hair or takes his crayons when he's trying to color what ever it is he needs to color, or Blaid needs help with his instructions, math, reading, or I need to check his work, or my favorite is when every five seconds I hear "Mommy I pooping my butt" from Paige, the phone rings, someones at the door, the neighbor downstairs needs help with some of her groceries in her car and I never complain because we love her dearly (God bless her she is almost 70 and she still does as much as she did at 50, the kids call her Granny Shirley), or there are days where I just don't feel like doing the dishes at all as I hate having to do them by hand but they do still need to be done. Every day Paige will ask me for a bath since she has finally decided she likes the water so long as she doesn't have to have her hair washed (up until 6 months ago she would scream bloody murder at the thought of a bath as she hated the water completely) so I fill the tub for her and Blaid since I don't like her in there by herself while I try to get some things done around the house, but I usually wait until Blaid has most of his school work done before I fill the tub for them, find them both clean clothes to put on after their baths and off to cleaning I go when things need to be done "right now" or on occasion I check my email, read articles online, watch a little TV (CSI, It Takes a Thief, Mythbusters,Charmed, or Tom and Jerry if I just want some background noise and don't really care what show is on), or pick up a book and read depending on how I feel right at that moment in time. Bed sheets don't get changed around here as often as we would all like since we have communal laundry and most days the washers are all full so we do a lot of our laundry by hand not to mention that takes time for it to dry after it gets hung up on lines we have hung up in the bathroom because in our lease it sates we cannot hang our laundry up outside to dry and when the washers are all full so are the dryers, it also saves on money to pay for the washers and dryers (having the money to pay our bills is a good thing so I don't complain about that plus our laundry is usually cleaner when we do it by hand anyway). There are 6 of us in the home so we do have a TON of laundry to do all the time anyway (I'm working on getting rid of the clothes we don't wear but being the pack rat that I am its not easy to throw things away all the time and gets quite painful for me sometimes). My older 2 boys are back and forth between my apartment and my ex husbands house so although they are old enough to do chores and have chores they are not always here to do them so Mom gets to pick up the slack and Blaid has his own chores to do as well but they are not quite as strenuous as the older boys or moms chores, and Paige only has her toys that she has to worry about but she is still to little to understand why she has to pick them up and still fights it. Clint does his share in the home as well he will take the time to help me with the dishes and the vacuuming, cooking dinner at least once a week, and taking out the trash, when Tommy(12) and Danny (10) are not here to do it, as well as the laundry and whatever else needs to be done so I can't say I do it all by my self as everyone in the house has a part to do and does it (with the exception of Paige who IS only 2 years old after all). but it still can get quite busy here every day at noon or so I make lunch, usually hot dogs or home made mac and cheese since it tastes better than the box stuff but we still eat the box stuff too since there are days when that's just so much easier than having to grate the cheese and then wait for it to melt into the pasta,milk and butter mixture, or even baking it like I have a tendency to do every now and then (tastes really good with hot dogs in it too when its baked or just mixed up on the stove top), I do a lot of cooking and baking not only because its healthier than a lot of fast food, but because we simply do not have the money to eat out a lot. We eat out maybe once a month if we are lucky as we have our bills to pay and lets face it to raise 4 kids, 2 of them close to being teens and one little miss who is very girly and prissy at times, its not cheap. We don't have "gourmet" meals we aren't rich and we damn sure don't have a chef to do all the cooking for us though there are days that I think "Man that would be nice" but we live ...we survive. It would be nice to be able to afford more in life but I made the mistake of dropping out of school at 16. I did get my GED and I have taken some college classes to better my education however I don't have a degree for anything just some college under my belt and still can only find a job that barely covers daycare for the 2 year old so I don't work. Clint works and he works hard. He had his CDL until his wallet mysteriously disappeared from the apartment and he had to send for a new license and the state of Arizona refused his copy of his medical card so they suspended his CDL but not his regular drivers license so that put a damper on his job opportunities. So instead of driving a truck like he enjoys, he is stuck working in a warehouse and not making as much money. When he comes home from work he is usually exhausted and his feet hurt so I will rub his feet with lotion for him to ease some of the soreness from them. I don't do it because I have to I do it because I want to. It really isn't so much that we have so much going on during the day as it can be tedious running after the kids most of the day and trying to find the time just to sit down for 2 seconds and think, so yes I will tell Clint "Baby... I need a few minutes to myself.... is that OK?" and I will either go hide in our room or I will go take a shower to have those few precious moments to myself and Clint sometimes will do the same thing. Ballance in our chaotic lives? Hell no there is never a ballance we just do what we can when we can. Finding the time to be by ourselves isn't always easy either as babysitters don't come cheap or easy to find a decent one. So we grab what time we can when we can and it can be very stressfull on a relationship. So I guess all I can say there is do what you can to cherrish the moents you do have and can find. Its not about being rich and its not about secrets its about finding the way to work it out and finding the way to make things work for your life style. Some people ar elucky enough to hire as many people as they could want or need to help them out and some of us can't. Clint and I talk it out when things get rough and we do just fine but there are days where things just don't work right and we argue but thankfully it doesn't happen as often as some people have it happen to them. I left my marige of 4 years because I was misserable in the marrige and I didn't think the kids needed to see me and him fighting all the time. I know thats not the answer to everyones problems so I cna't say that anyone whos misserable should just opt out of it just try to find that happy medium where you can work on it or make things work. Secrets and lies don'y fix the problems that are there. We have to be honest with our sekves and our significant others or it will die a slow and painful death. Well I guess I'm out of words for now so .I hope you enjoy the read here. Its long and its one of my babbles about things in life. Enjoy. Mandi

Last Night

Have you ever had one of those nights that is just not right but funny as hell when you think about it? Last night was one of those nights for me. I couldn't sleep anyway so decided the best thing to do was to stay in the living room watching what ever I could find that was interesting on to watch till I finally started to fall asleep on the couch so I wouldn't keep my boyfriend awake as he had to get up early for work this morning. And the best thing I could find to watch was a horror movie that Clint had been trying to get me to watch for a while now. For me not sleeping well is normal as I suffer from PT SD. By the time I finally got to bed it was 2:36 am and I couldn't seem to keep my eyes open very far so off to bed I went and I lied there in bed for about 30 minutes until I finally fell asleep. Well at 5:34 am My daughter who is only 2 years old woke up and was just screaming like there was no tomorrow. My boyfriend had already gotten up to check on her by the time I heard her so I thought to myself "OK Clint's got her I'll just lay here and see if every things going to be alright first since he had to be up shortly anyway. Then I finally heard my poor baby girl say "Daddy I pooped my butt" and she kept repeating it over and over. That's not a normal thing for her as she has been potty trained for over a year and has NEVER liked having a messy bottom. So Clint comes into the bedroom and wiggles my toes to wake me up ( which I was just barely getting to the point I could open my eyes more than an inch) and says "Baby I think you better deal with this one. Paige is crying for you". So off to the bathroom I go to see how bad the mess is and it was bad. My poor little Miss had one heck of a mess on her so I cleaned her up and put her back in bed after giving her some medicine for her tummy so maybe she could sleep a little bit longer before her brother ( my 6 year old son who is Home schooled) woke up and decided it was time for her to get up to play. Once she was clean and back in bed I went back to bed myself since I was still extremely tired. Now by this time it's about 6 am,Clint is in bed snoring away and hes has another hour till he has to get up, and I could hear my daughter singing to herself (which is normal for her, she likes to sing) and I closed my eyes thinking she'll be asleep in no time. Then, just as I start to drift off back to sleep, the thoughts of that movie I had watched popped into my head. At first I was alright until I heard noises out side my bedroom window. We live on the second floor of our apartment building and our bedrooms face the parking lot so we always hear people and cars outside no big deal normally, but as I was laying there and the noise started I didn't think it was so normal. It sounded almost like a scraping sound which, yeah on occasion we will hear kids with their skateboards on their way to the gas station up the road from the bus stop for junk before school, so it can be a normal thing here. To my tired wore out mind it sounded more like that thing with a really HUGE from the Silent Hill movie coming for us and that was all she wrote for me I was up and out of bed in the blink of an eye and I grabbed my daughter from her room since she was still up to come with me into the living room to watch some cartoons till I could go back to sleep and she could too after her little ordeal ( poor baby was mortified that she had "pooped her butt"). So her and I were laying on the couch for about five seconds when she tells me "mommy I pooping" and she had that look on her face like "if we don't get there now I'm going right here" so we ran to the bathroom and got her on her potty and here comes Clint from our room and I thought we had woke him up running to the bathroom. It's now 6:15 am ( not much time had passed since I lied down after cleaning her up and my nightmarish thoughts got me out of bed) so I asked him if we had woke him up to which he replied that his stomach was hurting really bad also. So i left the 2 of them in the bathroom so they could go to the bathroom and I sat back on the couch till they were done with the can of air freshener in my hands so Clint could spray in there when they were done. As I was sitting there I heard a knock on our living room window and I about peed my pants it scared me so bad. Clint came out of the bathroom about that time and saw the look of terror on my face and began laughing at me since he had no idea at all that I had watched that movie and asked me if I was alright. Which I replied to him with a "HELL NO I"M NOT ALRIGHT" look on my face and he busted out laughing all that much more. Come to find out the wind that we did have at 6:20 this morning had blown just hard enough for one of the tree branches on the tree by our living room window to hit very lightly on it sounding like a knock. Clint stayed awake till it was time for him to leave after all of that since it was so close to the time he needed to be up this morning and I was able to fall asleep on the couch for about an hour just as the sun was coming up. Paige finally was able to get back to sleep herself after some warm milk and a tummy rub to make the hurt ease up for a little bit (funny how that works with kids and pets)and she slept till 11:30 before she was up and somewhat mobile for they day. After I had calmed down some from my imagination running away with me I had to laugh since it was funny as hell including Paige's reaction to her dilemma in the early morning hours. No wonder Clint was laughing at me, had I been the one to see a look of terror on his face that early in the morning not knowing why I would have laughed too. I guess that sometimes even when we don't think a simple thing like a fictional movie can scare us our subconscious steps in to say "Oh yeah.... watch this..." as its laughing at us as well. Its one of those things, that if you have never experienced it yourself, you may have had to have been there to find it funny like I did after the fact. But I hope you enjoyed the read. Now its time for me to try and go to bed again and I hope this helped to rid myself of those terrifying thoughts tonight lol. Mandi