Quickie Life Update
I got my 5% raise retroactive to my hire date, so two pay periods ago. Our major stress-event of the year completed successfully last night as well, so the rest of the year will be calm and spent reorganizing things I haven't had time to tackle with our hectic year. I also get about a week and a half off at Christmas, as the office will close 5pm the 21st of December and not reopen until 8am the 2nd of January. This is rather cool, as it doesn't come out of my two weeks a year vacation allotment.
Bear landed a second job (the first being dad & teacher, after all). We'd been prepping for this by me taking some of the homeschool workload, and the boys are at an age where they can work independently in several areas. Bear will be working nights/weekends (which sucks) but it keeps Lenae out of daycare and the boys homeschooled, so it will be worth it.
Not sure on our Thanksgiving plans, as we'll have to see what Bear's work schedule is like. I'm hoping to just do a nice meal here and skip the family events. The MIL isn't coming this year because she's getting ready to move from Kentucky to Colorado for work, so I don't think we will see her at Christmas either. She wants us to come up the week I'm off then, but Lenae HATES the car, so driving 9 hours isn't realistic for us right now (heck, Lenae screams bloody murder spending 9 MINUTES in the car...) Plus Bear's work schedule may not allow for it anyway.
I haven't journaled about family much lately because it's all been bad stuff. My little sister D. had a nearly successful suicide attempt that put her in ICU for a few days - and no one bothered to call and tell me about it. Mamaw wrote me a letter a week or so after D. got out of the hospital. D. has been rediagnosed with bipolar disorder and they added PTSD from our childhood with Mom. Mom's off her meds again, and sister R.'s being a butthead because I won't associate with the extended family (particularly her dad, my adopted dad). And all my birthdad's family's promises of staying in touch were the same old BS. My family's just too damn depressing to think about lately. The only "good" news on that side is that R. is pregnant with a baby boy, to be named Connor, who will arrive in February. Unfortunately, she's still smoking, as her NURSE husband thinks smoking is a good idea to keep the baby small. I swear, if that baby has respiratory or health issues when he's born, I'm going to rearrange parts of dear BIL's anatomy. *sighs*
The in-laws are same as ever. FIL had to have quadruple bypass surgery last month, which was frightening to the extreme in the level of stoppages they found (he'd had the other kinds of surgery multiple times, but finally had to do the full thing). He's doing okay and even got out of the hospital a day earlier than normal. But he's back to his normal negativity now. He called us the day of the stepMIL's birthday (and lied to her that he'd been trying to call all week) and told us we should cancel our plans (to visit his own mother) to come out for a family party. When we declined he said "well, we have 6 kids here already, we won't miss 3 more." Yeah, I think we've gotten the picture that he prefers his stepkids/grandkids to the real ones (although he was probably hacked that he wouldn't get 2 babysitters for the little ones out of the boys being there). Heck, 3 of those 6 kids are stepBIL's girlfriend of the month's kids. Not to mention one of the stepBIL's kids is a nightmare child who I am kind of scared to have Lenae around because of how rough she is with other kids. The boys can protect themselves, but Lenae's too small.
Bah... family, who needs 'em? I'll stick with hubby & kids as all the family I need. (although I did breakdown and add my stepsister to myspace...)
Speaking of, Bear redid my myspace layout for me - all pretty purple now (I'm arkiewriter there too), but myspace is still rather boring compared to LJ to me. However, Facebook is teh internet crak! ;-)
Crap... 11:30 already. Off to finish my laundry so I can go in for my half-day at work in a bit.
Bear landed a second job (the first being dad & teacher, after all). We'd been prepping for this by me taking some of the homeschool workload, and the boys are at an age where they can work independently in several areas. Bear will be working nights/weekends (which sucks) but it keeps Lenae out of daycare and the boys homeschooled, so it will be worth it.
Not sure on our Thanksgiving plans, as we'll have to see what Bear's work schedule is like. I'm hoping to just do a nice meal here and skip the family events. The MIL isn't coming this year because she's getting ready to move from Kentucky to Colorado for work, so I don't think we will see her at Christmas either. She wants us to come up the week I'm off then, but Lenae HATES the car, so driving 9 hours isn't realistic for us right now (heck, Lenae screams bloody murder spending 9 MINUTES in the car...) Plus Bear's work schedule may not allow for it anyway.
I haven't journaled about family much lately because it's all been bad stuff. My little sister D. had a nearly successful suicide attempt that put her in ICU for a few days - and no one bothered to call and tell me about it. Mamaw wrote me a letter a week or so after D. got out of the hospital. D. has been rediagnosed with bipolar disorder and they added PTSD from our childhood with Mom. Mom's off her meds again, and sister R.'s being a butthead because I won't associate with the extended family (particularly her dad, my adopted dad). And all my birthdad's family's promises of staying in touch were the same old BS. My family's just too damn depressing to think about lately. The only "good" news on that side is that R. is pregnant with a baby boy, to be named Connor, who will arrive in February. Unfortunately, she's still smoking, as her NURSE husband thinks smoking is a good idea to keep the baby small. I swear, if that baby has respiratory or health issues when he's born, I'm going to rearrange parts of dear BIL's anatomy. *sighs*
The in-laws are same as ever. FIL had to have quadruple bypass surgery last month, which was frightening to the extreme in the level of stoppages they found (he'd had the other kinds of surgery multiple times, but finally had to do the full thing). He's doing okay and even got out of the hospital a day earlier than normal. But he's back to his normal negativity now. He called us the day of the stepMIL's birthday (and lied to her that he'd been trying to call all week) and told us we should cancel our plans (to visit his own mother) to come out for a family party. When we declined he said "well, we have 6 kids here already, we won't miss 3 more." Yeah, I think we've gotten the picture that he prefers his stepkids/grandkids to the real ones (although he was probably hacked that he wouldn't get 2 babysitters for the little ones out of the boys being there). Heck, 3 of those 6 kids are stepBIL's girlfriend of the month's kids. Not to mention one of the stepBIL's kids is a nightmare child who I am kind of scared to have Lenae around because of how rough she is with other kids. The boys can protect themselves, but Lenae's too small.
Bah... family, who needs 'em? I'll stick with hubby & kids as all the family I need. (although I did breakdown and add my stepsister to myspace...)
Speaking of, Bear redid my myspace layout for me - all pretty purple now (I'm arkiewriter there too), but myspace is still rather boring compared to LJ to me. However, Facebook is teh internet crak! ;-)
Crap... 11:30 already. Off to finish my laundry so I can go in for my half-day at work in a bit.