Growing Up Me

I am finally back! I’ve got the computers, internet and phone up and running again. I doubt I will ever get caught up with the emails or anything else.  I have to give a big thank you to my Mom over at Haunted Living for making some of my drops for me while I was away.  I have missed my blog friends and writing the last couple of weeks and am looking forward to getting caught up with everyone’s blogs. Here are my top droppers for January:

I will be back on Tuesday to post a blog and return drops at Entracard.  I am having computer and internet problems.

I wanted to share some link love for my Top Droppers. Thank you to everyone who has dropped on me since joining Entrecard last month.  Everyone’s visit is much appreciated.  

• Imagination Madness
• Man In The Moon
• Haunted Living
• Mumsy
• Blanca DeBree Blog
• My Crazy Life With A Toddler
• Search Engine Panel
• Kids…Me & RAW III
• Thrifty Creativity
• Work at Home Mom Revolution

This year I did not make unreasonable New Years Resolutions for myself. I made small things that I know I will be able to get done. Here is My New Years list.

• Organize the garage so the cars will actually fit in it with the junk
• Fix the sink
• Clean out the baby’s toys
• Finish the 15 projects I have going on the house.
• Enroll in college
• Get my website to where I want it to be.

Well I have done one thing this week. I am going back to college. Not that I am not busy enough already but I do need to get a different set of skills.  I have been wanting to go back to school and get my bachelor’s degree anyway.  I am now officially enrolled and my books are on their way!

I have not been making many posts the last couple of months for that I owe my loyal readers an apology.  I have wrote a lot of blogs but they were too angry and bitter for me to post them on here.  As this year comes to a close, I have tried to draw on some optimism for the coming year. So here are some optimistic thoughts, thank yous and overdue congratulations.

• Thank you to both sets of parents for helping me make a great Christmas for my girls. Also to my brothers and sisters that helped out as well. We managed to get everything on the list except the Jonas Brothers, a pony and John Cena. (Okay, Yes, John Cena was mine but it was worth a try)
• I have three beautiful daughters to give me love, laughter and headaches.
• I have a wonderful grandmother who is a treasure.
• Thank you to my In-Laws for letting us stay in your home while I get on my feet again.
• Congrats to my Aunt Bev on her engagement.
• Congrats to my husband and his girlfriend on their upcoming bundle of joy. No hard feelings truly. May your union be a long one the two of you deserve each other.
• Thank you to my husband for walking out on us. You’ve done us a favor. We will be that much stronger when we get through this. We don’t need you! My hair is growing back, I haven’t threw up from nerves in months nor have I felt the urge to beat inanimate objects with a sledgehammer. ( See the pattern here?) On that note….
• To his girlfriend, I will be glad to pass the sledgehammer to you. You will need it! Whether to relieve stress or to keep homewrecking huzzies at bay. Think you can trust him? Remember there are more in the bar where he found you. If you should change your mind about castration, call me. I have dull rusty shears and 7 months of being really pissed off as well as a small army of seven brothers happy to hold him down. Which leads me to:
• My dear hubby, my brothers miss you very much and can’t wait to see you again.
• Thank you dear hubby for your Oct screw-up that brought C. back into my life.
• To C.’s cousin Chris, thanks for showing me I was worth ten bucks and more along with saving my butt in the server class.

My final optimistic thought for tonight. It could always be worse. For every one thing that is bad in my life, there are three things for which I am truly blessed.  It could be the other way around.

I recently read an article in a magazine about some companies outsourcing IT (Information Technology) jobs to other countries because they can not find suitable employees here in America. Huh? I read it again thinking my eyes deceive me. Nope, not hardly it really was there.  Well that is news to me as well as hundreds or maybe even thousands of unemployed IT workers in the U.S.

I have a degree in Network Administration, three diplomas in specialties, various vendor certifications as well as six years experience to back it up.  I have applied for over one thousand jobs this year to no avail.  I have not given up.  I still check the job boards everyday. Not just IT jobs but anything I can do that will cover the cost of day care and gas while leaving us enough money to live on.  Meanwhile, I am working two jobs and doing this blog which combined do not make minimum wage.

This makes me want to slap around a few Execs. The same Execs with their hands out for bailout money. They’ve sent most of our jobs to foreign countries then complain because no one can buy their products here.  Since I can’t afford to go do it myself, I will have to outsource the job to a foreign country.  They’ll be happy for the opportunity to finance more terrorist operations and send their best suicide bomber to throw shoes at them.

Once I think I have made a little progress then something happens and I get my legs knocked out from under me.  I find myself on my rear-end at the bottom of the hole I’m in looking up coveting the spot two rungs up the ladder that doesn’t reach the top.  I don’t have to be on cloud nine or even cloud one since that will just set myself up to be knocked off. I just want to be back on ground level.  I can start from zero once again but I am finding it hard to battle my way from negative nine.  At this rate, I think I might just need to start digging my way to China. I’ll get to solid ground faster or maybe to Singapore or India. At least I know I could get a job there since over half of the products on our American shelves at our American Wal-mart have been made in a foreign country.

If you have read my posts from October, then you know about my home being under attack by gremlins.  Maybe they took pity on me and decided to fix what they broke or it is a higher power involved.  For whatever reason it now works, I am so blessed!  Last night, I was starting supper and my daughter accidently hit them button to turn on the oven.  What do you know? It came on and started working!  My daughter thought I had lost my mind as I was jumping up and down yelling,”Thank You God!”  My oven working was one of those things that I had been taking for granted until it was gone.  As I was thinking of things that I was thankful for, my stovetop still working was one of them.  I had not been able to get it fixed so I was just making do with the stovetop.  It could have been worse. I could have been back to hot plates, microwave and a crockpot.  After two months of no oven, yes I am extremely happy.  I got to bake last night!  I haven’t had cornbread or biscuits the last couple of months unless I went somewhere else.  To me baking things is as theraputic as writing. My daughter may not understand but she sure did enjoy the cornbread and homemade cookies last night!

Ok, I know I may be starting World War 3 here but I sincerely want everyone’s opinion. I want to know if I am being unreasonable.  Is it wrong to want the same kind of relationship my parents have? Is it unreasonable to want to be respected by my partner? I mean shouldn’t he have as much respect for my feelings as I do his? Am I not a human being too? How much am I supposed to take before being allowed to get angry? What was his excuse for total disregard for me and our children by staying out all night without even a phone call?  My dad does it all the time and my mom survives. Okay, in the four years that I have known his parents, that has happened once and he was at his sister’s house and not out at a bar with friends.  I still didn’t see his mom jumping up and down screaming with joy, “Yes! My husband didn’t come home last night without even a phone call. I just love it when he makes me worry!”   Shouldn’t we do more than just survive?

Yesterday, I harped on marital values but all those things should be with any committed relationship.  I should have called them relationship values. If you are in a partnership with another person then you should be committed to each other not everyone and their cousin or your cousin’s girlfriend!  Those values are not just reserved for married couples. They should be for any relationship whether you are straight, gay, or bi. They should be held true if you are married, intending to marry or just plan on living together forever.  If you are in any kind of exclusive one on one relationship with a partner you are considering for life then you should value them like you want to spend the rest of your life with them. Your relationship values should reflect how much you value your partner as a person. You should value them all the time not only when it’s convenient for you and you don’t have better plans with your buddies!