After being told by the child support office that we were going to have to go back in last week to sign paperwork and then not being called, I called the phone number they give out and got a general help line. I was basically told that the child support office is working well within their time line and I may not get any changes made until June or July. While that may be okay with them, it’s not for me. I’m falling into that late payment trap. “You can’t pay your bill on time? That’s fine. We’re tacking on another $5-$30 to help you out!” Sooner or later, something’s gotta give and I’m afraid that at this point, the give is going to be me breaking. =/

I still haven’t worked on the site issues. I’m getting a header error message continually upon logging in and other things. Maybe you guys are too. I don’t know. Haven’t had any comments in so long. I was going to work on the site spring break week but I ended up being sick. Really sick - the stay in bed and try not to move because my body ached so bad I was sure something was going to break, sick. I thought I had the flew, but it just turned out to be some stomach bug. I never went to the doctor despite TBF begging me to go. I couldn’t afford the office visit or meds. The good thing about being that sick though,when I could finally eat again, even soup tasted like the best food ever created. Every food reintroduced tasted better than the last. I’m also happy to say that I’ve been caffeine free for over two weeks now. =D I figure cutting out the cokes (or actually Dr. Peppers) can’t be a bad thing. Maybe I’ll lose some weight.

Other than that, nothing new to report just trying to hang in there and keep my head above water….like everyone else these days.

I called, texted, begged, yelled, cried, and talked to the girls and the ex. The bottom line on it all seemed to be that everything the ex said was based on things Rebecca had said. The two girls fight like mad. Rebecca is ready for Vanessa to be gone…and honestly, Vanessa is ready to graduate and get out of the house. As far as the drug use goes, there seems to be no reason to think that Vanessa has done more than drinking, hooka bars, and a little pot. Not that I’m okay with that, but in the scheme of things, that’s not nearly as bad as I was told. As for her school, she was out a week with the flu and had an allergic reaction to the meds the doctor gave her to fight the flu. She did miss one more day in one class than the others - that day they verified she was in the office after lunch puking her toenails up - the first day of the flu. She has already talked to the counselor about her days missed and has been assigned make up days and retests….she had already done that on her.

Vanessa may be doing drugs. She may not. All I know for sure is that she seems to have gotten the school thing under control and the ex seems to have decided maybe she wasn’t so bad off after all. As for me, I’m as confused as ever -but hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

Yesterday I got a call from the ex saying Vanessa was doing drugs and he was going to give her an ultimatum….quit or pack her stuff and get out. I had a cow. “Don’t do that!!! That’s basically what I did and she left. I told her she was going to be grounded if she stayed at my house and that was that. She left.” After much talking, I finally made him see it’d be better if he just told her this was the way it was going to be - no ultimatums, just strict parenting. I tried to politely explain that he should have taken the hardline approach when he first got her. He said, “She was doing great while she was on probation, but you can tell looking at her grades that once probation was over, she lost her mind.”

Being me, I couldn’t resist. “Ya. I tried to tell you if you didn’t instill fear in her then, you would never be able to, but you wanted to be her friend and now she believes she can do whatever she wants because she has you snowed. Why didn’t you keep track of her grades? Why didn’t you tell her that she couldn’t hang out with the friends you didn’t like? Why weren’t there more rules?”

Of course he just said that she had been so good, he never thought she was up to no good. She was always home before curfew and did as told. Monday when we went to the child support office, he was just telling me how wonderful she was. Now I was hearing how she was smoking pot, doing extacy and possibly even cocaine.

I cannot believe what I heard. I keep tearing up wondering if I threw her from the frying pan into the fire by sending her to live with her dad. I wonder why my baby decided to go this route when she knows to just say no and she knows I don’t approve and she knows….she knows it all. Why my baby? How can I keep my other kiddos from doing the same thing? How can I keep her from deciding she’s 18 and can move out with one of her druggie friends? How can I keep her from quitting school, not attending college, and not ending up a statistic?

I’ve been waiting on a call back from the ex to see how the talk and drug test but it hasn’t come yet. In the mean time, I can’t help but wonder where I went wrong and how I can keep from making the same mistakes again. =/

This might be the last post for a while. I haven’t received a child support check since Feb 1 and my check alone doesn’t pay all the bills. It’s funny. I set my house up so that it’s paid for the year Ethan turns 18 and I stop receiving child support. I waited to get my certification as long as I could so that the raise I got would help compensate for the cut in child support once Vanessa hit 18. Now though, it seems none of that matters.

When Vanessa went to live with her dad, he called the child support office to have her dropped off. Since Vanessa was turning 18, she was dropping off anyway. The change of custody turned into a freeze on the account as they thought all the children were living with the ex. We went into the child support office on Monday where the lady there completely berated me as being a bad parent for not returning the child support money to the ex for the months Vanessa has been living with him. Then she went on to say that all the back child support will go to him as I owe him for the months of Nov. through June. JUNE!!!!!!!!! At that point, I was having a cow, “JUNE?!?!”

They sent me a letter to fill out about Vanessa still being in school and I didn’t fill it out. I wanted her to drop off quickly and that wasn’t my money. The reason I didn’t try to return the other money is because the court still tried to nail the ex for the money he quit paying me when Rebecca went to live with him. The court lawyer told us not to go against the order as the court doesn’t recognize it. I didn’t want to get dinged twice for that money. The child support lady had assumed I filled out the paperwork to claim the money on Vanessa until she graduated. She was going to award all the past child support to the ex and release the hold on the account. I threw a fit though and she realized I didn’t sign those papers. At that point, she looked at the computer and realized Vanessa had been dropped off - they were no longer taking that out of the ex’s wages.

You’d think at that point, she’d lift the hold, but noooo. We’d both already said we didn’t care about the back child support. We just needed the hold to be lifted so I could get payments again. She said that couldn’t be done until they figured out what should be done to the two months of child support on hold. At this point, I was trying hard not to cry. I’d already written a hot check to pay my house payment and knew I’d have to write another to pay my electric bill. GO GO Bounce Protection! When I told the ex the situation, he said, “Look, give her that back support. I just want Vanessa dropped off. I don’t care what happens to that money, but she needs the payments.” She said she didn’t think they could do that and she’d have to speak to a financial specialist, but they weren’t in this week. In other words, nothing got fixed…and we will have to go back again to sign paperwork once they get it fixed.

So what’s that got to do with my blog? I can’t pay all my bills so I haven’t paid for this site nor have I paid for WoW and a few other small things like that - the first things to have to go. My internet might be next. I’m trying to hold on to my phone as long as possible. I’ll be posting as long as I can and I’ll be back as soon as the child support gets straightened out; however, if it has to go to court, it won’t see a judge until June and I won’t see a drop of money until 4-6 weeks after that.

TBF has offered to help me out…and it’s caused a few fights. If you know me, you know I’m pretty stubborn and proud. He has things he needs to do with his money. It’s important to me to pay my own way…be able to take care of Ethan and myself on my own. I don’t want to become dependent on someone again. I did that once and it didn’t turn out well. I can do without a few things until child support gets worked out. I do wish I was a bank CEO right now though. =/

I haven’t been online enough to fix my site and there are still some issues.  I also wan to get he forums up although Krieger is still going on.  Turns out I just couldn’t see it with firefox.  I’m off all this week except Tuesday and Thursday (the two days TBF has off.  /boggle)  Hopefully I’ll fix the issues during this time…especially since TBF is going to Abilene tonight and won’t be back until Monday.  Without him as a distraction, I tend to get more stuff done…lol

I’m such a sap.  Tuesdays and Thursdays TBF and Lee go to school leaving just 4 of us techs - 1 that’s still training and 1 that’s been there for a very long time but no longer likes to work.  That leaves 2 of us scrambling to keep up with things and it’s very difficult.  When the other tech went on vacation for a week, I thought I was going to go insane on Tuesdays and Thursday.   I couldn’t do that to them…make them struggle like that.  So I didn’t take the full week off. =/  During the summer, I’ll take a full week.  There will be enough people to cover so I won’t feel bad…and I’ll still have a few days to use as long weekends. =)

Yesterday morning I was looking around for forums to add to my site since the Krieger forums seem to be down now.  Rather than doing that, I borked the site.  Luckily, Tymoriel  came to my rescue last night and helped find the issues.  The forums aren’t working yet; however my site is back up - minus a comment by Cherlin. =(

As if that weren’t bad enough for the morning, Dante managed to slip out the gate while I was texting TBF and leaving for work.  While trying to get him IN the gate, Petey got out.  Off they went.  After 30 minutes of me chaising them and them letting me get close only to run again, I couldn’t wait any longer and left for work.  I called my mom and it just happened that she was near my place.  She stopped by and the dogs saw her pulling into the drive and came running.  She walked into the yard and they followed.  She walked right out and shut the gate behind her.  *sigh*  it was so much work for me and not for her…lol  She then texted me “Pet don in fence.”  I thought she meant put dogs in the fence, but that was shorthand for Petey and Dante in fence….lol

I got a text from TBF about 30 minutes before I left work that said, “You need to hurry and get off!”  I texted back, “I’m off work now!” and as I walked out to my car, there sat TBF in his car, “Get in, we’re going for ice cream.” …and we did.  Ice cream was good and with the help to get my site fixed afterward, I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to a bad day. =)

We saw the midnight showing last night.  Don’t bother.  Wait and rent it.  So much potential there, but the story was lacking.  It was easy to figure out who done it and the violence, language, etc was too much, not to mention it was too long.  They took 3 hours to explain what I figured out in 30 minutes. The graphics were good though and the tidbits dropped here and there in the background were neat.

TBF got a dog.  He’s too smart for his own good.  I was making Petey sit and shake for a treat and having Dante work on sitting for a treat when he began shaking as well because Petey did.  They both now give kisses on command as well…lol  He loves to stand in between Petey and you when Petey is trying to be pet. Petey then begins to snarl and the fight is on.  Once I tell them to go outside though, they’re back to running and playing again.  Silly dogs.  I just can’t break them of fighting for attention.