Almost September

Well, I've been really, REALLY bad about updating this month. Things have been soooo busy! So, let's get started!

Military:
DH had a first day off in a long, LONG time last Friday (Aug 22). It was his birthday pass (from early July). It was nice because he took the boys and I was able to work in peace that day! It was also nice having him home! He gave up shirt duty in mid August, but had to stay in the office until the 21st. He got everything done that he needed to get finished that week and requested to take his bday pass. Yesterday, (Friday the 29th) was an ACC family day and of course Monday is Labor Day so they all get off the 4 day weekend. Then he proceeded to put in for 2 weeks of leave started September 2nd. He's so excited to have some leave scheduled! Of course I figure he'll be playing World of Warcraft mostly, however he did get some things done I wanted on Friday! He has so much leave built up, I asked him why he didn't take more, but apparently they have an exercise later the week he gets back. Oh well!

He thinks he'll probably deploy next summer since he ended up not going this time around. We're going to try to schedule a leave for June of next year to go visit the fam before he takes off.

HOME:
The kids behavior has been deplorable. I think they're excited for school to start, but being boys, they don't want to admit they're excited for school to start, so they tell me they HATE that school's going to start soon and meanwhile snipe at each other ALL THE TIME. They're also going through yet another lying phase which is my biggest pet peeve. We caught them getting up in the middle of the night playing Wii, so that was taken away. And then we caught them watching TV in the middle of the night so that was unplugged and the cable removed. Then last Friday, DH found the cable unwound from where he'd put it and plugged back in, so they got in trouble AGAIN for watching it. The TV has now been moved away from plugs and cable (and the thing weighs like 300lbs so they won't be able to move it back). It's like they don't care that they're in trouble, so they just keep doing what they're doing! Sheesh! I have been on a countdown until school starts since 2 weeks ago! Only 2 more days of them home and at each other's throats before peace reigns again in the house!

The oldest will be in middle school this year, so we had to do lots of "meet the teacher" nights and learning how to open his locker and how his schedule is at school, and then an orientation and then paying for activities, lunches, and PE uniforms. They've raised school lunches this year so that it'll be approximately $50a month! That's crazy! They used to eat for less than I could feed them at home and now it's gone up beyond that. We may have to start packing lunches because I think I can give them 2 PB&J sandwiches plus a banana or apple or orange and fill their water bottles for less than $2.15!

The youngest is in his last year of elementary school. I think he was more excited about middle school than the oldest since he went with us to all of the orientations and stuff. He can't wait for next year! Of course both are about the same size, so everyone thought they were both going to middle school. (I get asked alot of they're twins.)

I can't believe how much the cost of fuel affects EVERYTHING! We spent almost $150 on school supplies. Then we spent another $180 on socks, underwear, shoes for the youngest, 2 pairs of jeans per boy, a nice button up shirt (with a cool Tshirt underneath) for each boy for school pictures (this is our tradition), and a couple of other itmes for school. Then we got home and realized that the oldest's school shoes from last year (which he said were still ok) were raggedy. So I went online and spent another $200 on school shoes for him, new socks (which he said he didn't need, but I've seen the holes in his socks and made him start throwing them out), and then we needed shoes for basketball. We also needed a duffel bag for gym. and there were some cute shirts on sale for $3 each so I bought them each one. Not to mention the $50 per child for lunch money and the $20 for activities for the oldest to play basketball, and the PE uniforms which only cost us $36 but that's because they only had shorts available right now and he has gym 3 times a week, so 3 pairs of shorts. We have to wait for the shirts to come in and that will be $13x3 so another $39.

I think I added it all up and it was about $700. Not to mention that the oldest's 12th birthday is coming up here shortly. Oh and did I mention their mother is STILL not paying child support? (You can see the reason I'm so annoyed about the money issues now. Here comes the rant, so prepare yourselves.) It's been 7 months this year she hasn't paid. We had told her that if she can't afford to pay child support, she does not need to send the boys ANYTHING. (She was enjoying buying them all sorts of cool stuff and not paying child support. Such as a Nintendo DS for the youngest's birthday, a pirate ship cake that cost $50, lots of games, etcetera...oh and have you heard the story about how the boys got their Nintendo SPs thrown away because they continually played them at night during the school year last year? Yeah, but she got him another handheld game system. Go figure. She also sent them 8boxes of girl scout cookies another time and Wii games in Easter baskets, etcetera...but NO child support!) We finally told her we were through with this and that she was NOT to send them another thing until she could afford to pay for things they NEEDED. So we received an email in July saing we should begin seeing child support now and that she was purchasing the oldest a Nintendo DS system for HIS birthday in September plus games, etcetera. We did receive one payment. Then in August we received nothing again and I'm sure this trend will continue until Christmas where she'll pay yet another month just so she can send the boys $400 worth of gifts. (She does this every year...we call it her "guilt" that she spends so much money.)

DH finally called DCS yesterday and she said she'd referred the case to the state where the bio mom lives and she had to give them 90 days before she could begin garnishing wages. We wondered if maybe she received something from the state she lives in around July and that's why she paid (though I think it was also so she could send an expensive gift). Thankfully the bitch is gone to Germany for over a month for her job for all of September, so we don't have to deal with anything but stupid emails. I'm sure she'll buy souvenirs too and think that once her wages are garnished, she'll be allowed to send all of that. However, I'm half thinking she'll probably just quit her job when her wages get garnished so she doesn't have to pay. We had so many problems last year with her paying, we had to send her email reminders every month since last April and finally I said "She's a big girl, we need to stop doing that and report her." So we informed her we'd be reporting her if she couldn't pay on time. After that we never saw anything until July.

Honestly, if she doesn't want to pay, we'd be more than happy to have her sign a termination of parental rights form and she can have contact with them if THEY choose after they're 18. Our oldest remembers alot of the things she did in the past and has told us he doesn't know if he wants a relationship with her. The youngest was 5 when everything happened, so he still sees everything through rose colored glasses. In June, the oldest blew up at her and let her have it during their phone calls on the phone. He had talked to us one night about why his father had let the things happen back then and we had to explain that his dad was deployed and that's when everything went down. His dad and I were only dating at the time and I had to get power of attorney from their mother and drive 9 hours to get both boys and take them back home with me until their father got home. It makes me sick what happened and I'm thankful every day that WE have these kids.

She only gets supervised visitations and that was supposed to last the first 3 years and we'd decide what was to happen after that. Well September will be 5 years since I've had them both with me. She asked to have unsupervised visitations when the 3 years was up. We requested that if she wanted to see them unsupervised that she work at being more responsible with payments AND come out more than once or twice per year to see them. (She originally had a job that was allowing her to come out the last week of EVERY month, but she doesn't keep jobs very well. She went through 3 or so before she got this one she's had for about 2 years now.) So she said she would work on coming out more often but that it may just be for long weekends instead of a week at the end of the month. We said that was fine, but that the boys needed to see her more often so they could learn to trust her again. (We were thinking more of the oldest who remembers more of what happened.) So this started last summer. She came out in November for a long weekend and then said she was coming out either end of January or beginning of February. She did come out then for a long weekend. Then she told us and the boys she'd be out in April again, but she never showed up for that visit and hasn't since then. The youngest questioned her in early June if she'd be coming out this summer and she said she didn't know. Then in early June DH was put on the list to deploy and we had to let her know if she was coming to visit, it needed to be like NOW. She couldn't and was pissed off that we'd given her short notice. (She's prior military and works for a branch of the military now so she should KNOW this is how it works sometimes! Besides, we were told that due to him accepting the shirt position, he would NOT be going.) Anyway, as soon as he came off the list and it looked like he was staying off the list, we let her know we didn't think he was going and he was back to alternate status. However, she had lots of TDYs for her job and now this month long trip to Germany. I guess she won't be back til the beginning of October. So, who knows when the boys will see her again this year...probably around Christmas which will make it...oh yeah, twice a year again. We also let her know that since she hasn't been paying child support, we didn't see this as a personal responsibility on her part and would not be letting the unsupervised visitations begin until all of this happened like we requested (and she agreed to).

Then the visitation center we used closed down at the end of June. So now we have to drive to another city (and you know how gas prices are) to have the visitations happen. I've called once to talk to the lady, but I have written out a list of questions I also need to ask her so I need to call again. Did I also tell you that the judge requested that WE pay half her gas to come see the kids?! Oh yeah, that pissed me off too. SHE is the one who moved away because DSS was doing an investigation on her and when I got the kids, they dropped the investigation. She moved within 3 weeks of me getting both the kids. Why should we have to pay her gas if SHE chose to move away?!

One time she hadn't paid child support and instead came out to see the kids and we told her we'd pay half her gas when we got child support. As soon as it came, we sent her money (nothing states WHEN we have to pay it in the court documents). Then the last time she came out, she knew she hadn't paid, so she didn't even bother leaving gas receipts for us. In fact, she usually communicates via email about what nights she'll be bringing them dinner and if she'd like them to bring games and stuff so that we can remind them, or not feed them, or where she's left the gas receipts and when she'd like to be paid by and how (she's very demanding) or whatever. This last time she came everything was suspiciously quiet (because she hadn't paid child support and she knew it). To this day we have not seen gas receipts from that visit even though we've mentioned it in emails to her.

At this point, I'll be really pissed off if she chooses to come and see the boys instead of paying child support. She always brings crap they don't need when she comes and we have to deal with pretty bad behavioral problems from the oldest when she deigns to show up. They're better off without her in MANY people's opinions.

Ok, I'm going to turn the rant off now. Sorry about that. We got an email saying the oldest's gifts were on the way and with all the money we've spent for school lately and her not sending anything but that which makes her look good to the kids (because THEY don't know she's not sending child support) so I'm more than a little pissed off about the situation.

Let's move on, shall we?

I also start school on Tuesday, September 2nd and am really excited! I've changed my degree to IT and I think the business core plus the web design aspect of it will only help business! When I got my textbooks in and my notebooks and folders and pencils (I got girly camo colors...LOL), I fondled them about as much as I fondle new stitchy stash. I'm a sick, sick, person, aren't i? *grin*

WORK:
Work is insanely busy! I'd been thinking about picking up a part time job while the kids are in school just to help bring in some extra money (see above for the reason why). DH was helping me organize fabric bins the other day and I'd gotten extra for future expansions (thinking of picking up Jazlyn and Jubilee sometime in the future). He then turned to me and said, "I caused you to give up your first dream (vet school because we couldn't get moved to a military base closer to a vet school) and I will not LET you give up your 2nd." I'm glad because I didn't really want to pick up a 2nd job. I'm sure EF would have suffered a bit as well as school work, or I'd have had to quit that again.

Our September Online show is coming up here again, so I expect to be busy clear on into October. I'm trying to stock up on fabbies so if there's a manufacturer backorder, it won't affect me as much as last time(hopefully).

STITCHING:
Ahh, my favorite part! I picked up Moon Fairy Spirit and she has been FLYING along! Here she was last time I worked on her in May and took a picture:


Then I picked her up in August and took this photo on August 19th:


Then I snapped another pic on August 25th:


I was supposed to switch this week to the Halloween Heart Freebie I've been working on. Here's a pic of how it looks so far:


The flash kind of washed it out, but you can see the skelly so far!

Anyway, I was supposed to switch back to that this past week, but I could not put Moon Fairy Spirit down! I lamented about it on my message board, but everyone encouraged me to keep going with her! So I have. I haven't had time to stitch much during the week. After working with fabby all day, I usually don't want to touch any at night. I did pick her up one night and fill in some more of her dress. Because it's Labor Day weekend, I'm hoping to get lots of stitching time in on her!

Sunday I'm supposed to switch to Glendon Place's A Grateful Nation, but we'll see if I can put her down this time or not!

My Skeleton Crew has come a little ways since the last time I posted. Here it was last time:


And here it is now:


I also did get some more done on my Dawn Fairy in July, but I just hated the fabric I was using. I was using a Fairy Tears that was flawed and I just didn't like the flawed fabby with it. If I'm showing it off, I don't want people seeing the fabric thinking that's how it always looks, because it doesn't. I'm thinking of putting her on something different, but I haven't quite figure out what yet, and she's got so much confetti stitching that it's hard to get back into doing her again.

Oh, I also finished the And they lived Happily Ever After for my cousin's wedding on September 6th. Here's a pic of it framed!


I stitched it on Cashel Spring Meadow and had it framed with their wedding invitation. It was UPS'd out to my mother last week in time for them to take it to their wedding next Saturday! I wish I'd done the mats that I really wanted to have done, but oh well, can't change it now!

I submitted 2 of my cross stitch pieces to our fair here for the first time ever! I submitted my Poof Hat and my Glendon Place Grimm, Glum, and Gloom. I submitted the Poof Hat as framed cross stitch-linen and the Grimm, Glum, and Gloom as framed cross stitch-evenweave. However, when I went to see the results, they'd switched it to beading for some reason. I took first place in both categories though! Here are my pics!


And


I think that's about all I have to update for now! I'll get new pics up of the Moon Fairy Spirit after stitching on her today. I hope I can get back into my rotation soon, but she's just SCREAMING at me!