Kira driving me crazy

 I've taught a lot of kids to drive and Never had problems like I have with Kira.  I spoke to her today about why she really needs to take drivers ed from an instructor, a stranger. She should be way ahead of where she is driving!! I'm afraid it is just our bad relationship. Mostly since Jeremy left but really there has been something Bad there for a While.  It just all makes me very,  very,  sad. 

I admire and am proud of so much in Kira!! She has good morals, really cares about Being Right, and,  right or wrong, she is not afraid to take a stand fit what she believes.  She works very hard at the things she wants to accomplish like how she will go over her cheer routines over and over to get them perfect.  There is so much good in her!! But there is darkness and confusion in her,  too. Her foul mouth makes your ears bleed and it has become her language when happy, sad, excited, or angry. Every emotion is expressed wrapped in language that would make a sailor look like the pope. I believe that comes from someplace Dark. And it is frightening that there is a similarity in all of Jami's children that I know of that is hateful, entitled, and without empathy. I think Joey might be different in this, the empathy, but Lindsey and Kira don't seem to be able to Know what animals and children want and need. Kira has shown some desire to learn how to know if an animal is happy but it has been a very long road and a lot of damaged pets to get her to that point.  I KNOW this is not a good sign. Today Jeremy and I were talking about how Kira would sit and rock for HOURS for YEARS growing up.  How we would point it out to DHHS and CPS and they would just blow us off. Did That turn into this??  Did not acknowledging that this was a problem turn into the problems she has now??? I would send her to Jeremy if he knew any more than me about how to help her but he says he is just lost, too.

We can't lose her!! But how to reach her????

I do hear that feeling Entitled is common in her generation.  What will happen to the kids with that issue?? Will life just some day just slap them in the face with the reality that NO One "deserves " anything? If that theory only in religion?? But even if it is, religions are of tour world . Maybe some will get everything they feel entitled to and they will just feel like they were right,  that they WERE owed by the world.  Would that even be a Good Thing?? I don't think isee that for Kira. Maybe for some kids born into rich families who just give them everything they want all of their lives.  I don't I would even want that life.  It would be hollow. Devoid if the amazing feeling that you Accomplished something.  How truly awful! So,  then a Rude Awakening for all the other kids. Like Kira.  She anyway f eels so Ripped Off coming from a family that has to work for everything.  She says she is the Only Kid She Knows who has to work and buy their own car. I believe she means that.  How much does that feed into her resentment?? She bemoans that

Nett's birthday party

 ...somehow went off beautifully. Jeanette was 3 hours late, I wondered if that was a record for her and everyone said no but no one could name later time.  I was scared of it being a disaster mostly because Jess had been preparing for the day for over a week and started prepping 3 days before.  The only thing wrong with the meal was the potato salad,  my big contribution! but no one could figure out exactly what was wrong with it.  Today it hit me  - I didn't remember adding the boiled eggs because I didn't! 🫤 Jess made 2 cakes, the German Chocolate one Jeanette requested and then one of her fancy masterpieces and they were both fantastic.  There was no friction or conflict, just Family together ❤️.  Jenise and Phillip came early and helped set up.  

OMG we were sitting on the deck taking a break and Phillip said,  "Grandma, don't panic or move" and I just froze.  He knows better than anyone how terrified I am of wasps after last summer and he saw one land on my leg and then onto the cigarette in my mouth.  My eyes must have been huge when I saw it!!! "Phillip said,  "Now just drop it" and I opened my lips and let the cigarette fall and the little asshole flew off.  I said how they didn't seem to know me,  recognize me, any more and Phillip smugly said,  "That's because I killed all of those!" and he can be smug all he wants because that's so true!!

Back to the party.  It was all I could hope for for Jeanette and for Jess. For all of us. A truly Great Day. 😆💓❤️💞💕💗💕💕❤️❣️

Our Riley, ❤️!

 Nett was at work Wednesday night and saw a gang banger friend of Riley's trying to steal her car.  The fuel pump is out,  he just got it into the street and left it.  She texted me about it when she got home and I called and said I was coming over,  bringing Jami and Dave to at least push her car back in the driveway.  She didn't call the police because,  well,  they are scared of this guy!! She was Hot Pissed off and so was I and both of us wondering what Riley knew.  I called Riley on the way.  He wasn't "in on" it but kept insisting the boy was his "homie" and that he was sure he wasn't stealing Nett's car!! It took me forever to understand this! I've thought that Riley's Probation Officer was saying that Riley didn't understand right and wrong, or even his Miranda rights, I thought she was just saying that to get him off.  I was in Big Time denial that it was true! So Riley is telling me the guy was just going to drive the car a little and I'm screaming at him that driving without permission is STEALING and we aren't understanding each other.  I pull up and bust in the house where Nett is yelling the same things at Riley and I finally hear Jami who had been trying to shut me up all the way in the car on the phone "MOM! YOU ARE FUCKING UP!! HE CANT TAKE THIS! MOM!!! HE DOES NOT UNDERSTAND!!!" and I finally stopped and Heard Her.  Nett came outside with us and we all took a beat and let Riley,  who was crying now,  retreat to his room.  Jeanette said that she had actually called him a Retard!!! OMG I'm so glad I'm not the one dealing with That guilt!!!!!! But I Never would!! Period. Robby came out and we pushed the car up the drive into the range of the ring cam and Riley came out and took off walking.  I asked Jeanette where he was most likely headed and she said to Jackson's house in Elkhorn. Jami, Dave and I loaded up and I used 360, with them as look outs, to find him. We caught up with him around 135th and Maple. Jami asked him to get in, and he said no, so she said that I wouldn't say another word to him if he would get in and let us give him a ride. That or the fact that it was raining made him get in. He was talking, saying how very badly his mom hurt his feelings and that he still didn't understand what the deal was BUT also he thought his mom just shouldn't treat him that way and call him Retard. Jami and Dave agreed with him, told him Nett felt terrible and that we all love and want to help him. Near Jackson's house we ran into Jackson walking to meet him. When Riley got out he came to my door and hugged me 3 times telling me that he loved me and that he Knows that I Love him. The next day I texted Jeanette that we should get together and Love Bomb Riley and figure out how to help him and keep him safe.  She agreed. But then at 3 am Riley called me crying his guts out, said his mom came home from work yelling at him, calling him retarded more, threatening to turn him over to his PO, saying Riley doesn't love her. I offered to go get him but he didn't want that.  I texted Nett, didn't say I was talking to Riley, just asking what was going on. I'll copy it in here maybe!? I don't remember how it went but she did say she didn't believe that the boys love her. She says that ofen. I told her, always tell her, they love her more than anything in the word, AND THATS ABSOLUTELY TRUE!!! but she can't believe it right not.  Some of it is her own insecurity, but it also is just the boys being teenagers. I was on the phone with Riley till 5 am. We talked about him coming to stay with me for a while and I think he might.  Maybe he and Jeanette just need a break.  Then I slept most of the day,  until Jenise called from work saying that Robby has texted her that Riley was in big trouble but Robby deleted the message before she read it all and she was about to leave work to go check on them.  I told her no,  that I was already headed out the door,  and I was.  100 mph down 680 and slightly slower on Maple Street. I think I broke Philip's 10 minute record getting there.  Jeanette was just leaving,  I passed her in the trailer park exit. We both stopped and I said I was stopping to check on the boys for her.  She said something like that they needed checked on,  looked stressed and pissed. I told her I would handle whatever it was.  I got to Nett's and Riley was crying and flipping out,  Robby was trying to talk to him but saying the wrong things to help (like all of us do at times) but I was IN TUNE this time and I went in Riley's room and sorted it out. It was a lot more than the issue with his mother! - Jackson has been his best friend for a long , long, time, and he texted Riley after Riley got home that afternoon that he hated him,  that Riley was weird,  that they weren't friends, that he was coming to fight.  So I get Riley talking about what all they did today and he just kind of by and by mentioned that Jackson had a girlfriend and this girlfriend was around today and that she had asked Jackson for Riley's phone number! When Riley said that I told him, "There is your problem! Jackson didn't just suddenly start hating you, he is jealous!". Riley said "How could he be jealous? He didn't even know that his girl started texting and calling me after that!??" and I said "Riley, that doesn't matter! She asked him for your number he's jealous!". That's that. And there's no problem with Jackson beating Riley up cuz, truthfully, I could probably beat Jackson up! that's not even the issue. The issue was losing somebody who had been his friend for that long while dealing with all this from his mom. And no, I don't understand if his mother keeps saying that he's retarded, I just don't get that. She felt so bad about that last night! I don't know what's going on with that, I just know that I was there to help Riley right then.  I asked Riley what I should do, did he want to go home with me? and he said, not yet. So then Robby wanted to go to Keegan's house and I told him I would take him to give them some space from each other and give Riley some time alone to cool down. I texted Jeanette that I was doing that and she seemed okay with it so I hope it's over, peaceful, there, for now at least. I need to get Riley to stay over here a while or go stay with Jenise or something. They need some space there. 

I used voice texting for the last part of this so people's names are spelled wrong but I'll go back and fix that later when I fix all the typos I made before I started doing this and when I fix all the times this voice text thing didn't understand exactly what I was saying but I think I just wanted to get this story in here before I forgot it cuz it's something I have to deal with and can't forget.

I love this little family SO MUCH!!!!! Every one of them mean the world to me.  

Im going to try to call Riley.

ER - DID THAT

 Yea,  it got so bad I actually went.  The thrush started blocking my throat,  breathing and swallowing were becoming a thing of the past,  and I wasn't quite ready to Be a thing of the past.   

One small thing - I lied about what might have caused my condition.  I wanted it treated right away without any time delay complications.  I know thrush This Bad without a direct cause i.e. steroid or antibiotic use,  can be a big Red Flag. I will make an appointment soon to look for those little details.  I wanted/ needed immediate help with the immediate issue. I have 3 weeks of medications to keep this under control until I can take care of whatever tests I need.  I don't have HIV, cancer,  maybe??,  (could explain the weight loss!) but the most likely culprit would be that my glucose is off again.  I'll start testing for that myself today.  

But oh oh oh!! This Dr, Lauren at Benson CHI isn't my favorite, even tho I have to admit she is one of the most thorough in urgent care, and maybe the most current on medication and some disease information,  but she gave me the diflucan i4 always have to fight to get AND she recommended that I try Clortrimizan Lozenges instead of the normal nistatin. First,  it tastes SO MUCH better than nistatin!!! (like those old candy cigarettes!😀) but I believe it might work better, too! I didn't even know that athletes foot cream came in pill form or that it would be delicious!!  The pain was Way Less right away but kicked back up after a couple of hours and I was sad about that until I looked and saw that they are a 5 times a day med!!! I told Jeanette right away,  she has yeast problems even worse than me! and she hasn't heard of it either.  She jumped right on that detail that I shouldn't even have this issue this badly.  But she also went straight to me needing glucose testing.  Whatever.  Maybe this will help both of us.  

I do get thrush from time to time but this was different. I was driving yesterday and my back hurt terrible and then my lower abdomen until I realized that the familiar feeling was Exactly like menstrual cramps with a bad yeast  infection + endometriosis, except I don't have a uterus or ovaries or, hopefully! endometriosis.  Hmm. Need more government funding for research.  

Triple dose of stress ~ I AM BROKE.  Not a little short on cash.  BROKE. Need to get out on a street corner with a sign BROKE. I've even been figuring out what verbage I would use for my sign.  Kira put gas in the van last night,  Jazz already did,  and there are 5 days of this month left...  I just HATE THIS. Paying the house insurance at $530 a month is killing me and as soon as I finish that for the year I have to find $1400 for property taxes in July and then in a few months I'll have to start paying on the next $2500 house insurance!!!!! I know i need to get some kind of a job but that is not possible with being Uber for the girls.  They plan to buy cars (with the money they have saved while I've gone broke!!) by September but I don't think either of them can see the reality of buying their own gasoline,  car insurance,  and car maintenance and I will be asked to help them or keep driving them after September.  Hoping that Jessalynn would some day pay that forward was so ridiculous!! SHE doesn't grasp or care that I was even helping her. Ever. I just needed to mature and learn to talk and think like an adult like her. Patronizing says it all.  (Yes. I knew who/ what she was long ago. I just need to Stop thinking that people will rise above who they have been.  Foolish.) (The only way she Rose Above was to get a clear view of looking down on me! 🤣) kira is a bit like her but more honest about it and innocent in her thinking.  Kira tells me it is my OBLIGATION to drive them so they can make money, and she truly believes that! which tops just not giving a shit. Jeanette, Jazz, Jenise and even Riley  understand a little gratitude.   So I myself don't mind doing with even less to help them! But there is no robbing Peter to pay Paul even possible right now. Peter, Paul, and Mary are broke.  So WHAT TO DO. And of course Jeanette's car is broke down right now!! Jenise and Phillip have been helping her but they might not be able to after tomorrow.  I used to borrow from Meezy, and pay him back!! but he unfairly acts like JESS owes him if he helps me,  anything to get his hooks back in her!!     I am probably going to try to make a deal with Jazz but only if I can make it profitable to her in the long run,  pay her a high interest on the loan.  I have things I can sell,  maybe make an Ebay store? but that's not immediate help.  I'll also find out when Jami gets paid and I know Dave will come up with whatever he can.  He should be able to start working again but I don't think he'll get daily pay! So. Here. I. Sit.  Yea! I've lived to 67!!  BOO! HISS! It's Way More 😩 than joy!!

ER Time

 I just need time to go to the ER!! I feel terrible, thrush, sharp sharp headache in front like the aneurysm,  low abdomen pain,  what the hell - i don't even understand having the thrush. The rest is too much.  But when to get help?? I should have just gone after i picked up Jazz from work.  Then Kira has cheer in the morning and then I start helping Nett with transportation between driving the girls to and from work - i wish I could just give Nett the van for her to do it all but that wouldn't work with he work schedule and the girls work schedules. Maybe i can go to an urgent care while Kira is at cheer practice in the morning.  

Shoulda gone tonight.  Maybe still should.  Don't think I will sleep.  I've hardly slept the last 3 days.  This sucks. 

5 am

 One of those nights.  No sleep.  I just wish the sun would come up so I can tend the garden.  The watermelons popped up yesterday 🙂 I hope they make it.  2 more zucchini,  green ones,  are sprouting and I have 3 new cucumber sprouts and a lot of carrots and radishes coming up.  I'm stagger planting some things in case the first ones peter out or just don't work. I do love doing all of this!! I love that it keeps me outside,  too. 

I go a little crazy with not being able to control how much I spend on utilities, groceries and household things. When I tried to start using the AC late to save money Jess and Kira got so angry 😠 that I gave up.  Nova pooped on Kira's bed and she actually complained that she was freezing in her room without her thick blanets!! I'm freezing right now. And I'm the one paying for this!! No. I don't say anything about the AC or the heating in the winter or about buying coffees that are to me ridiculously expensive. Elaborate meals that cost over $20 to prepare all the time.  Name brand almost everything. No.  I just go out and work in the yard every day that I can walk that far and it isn't raining.  I thought i might not be able to handle the recent 100 degree days outside but it wasn't so bad.  I was out of the house. 

Jami the hero

 Yep. Jami took one for the team today and got my van fixed.  Kind of a joke there. She Did get a friend of hers to fix the van, but she didn't even have to offer anything in return.  Yes,  Nett and Jami have been known to offer favors for helping me,  but they never pay up more than they would have wanted to,  it's not prostitution!! but sometimes they have used their wiles to get things done.  Riley says he doesn't have a problem with the system. He says if guys are doing things and expecting more than they get for it that's their problem 😅! These kids can Crack me up!! But Jami looked at the van last night and told me she was sure I didn't ruin it, that the worst news would be if it needed a water pump but she was pretty sure it was just the thermostat (things I would have realized if I hadn't gone into panic mode!) (Hell,  I taught her what to look for!!) and Mike Boyles confirmed the diagnosis and then replaced it this morning 😁. M. Boyles helped me get thru Jami's coma,  he has been thru the same, and he messaged with me and kept me somewhat calm. Yes,  he's a Meth man, I'm pretty sure that everyone Jami knows is,  but he's a decent one from what I have seen.  

Oh, and Mike says that the way I got it home,  stopping and letting it cool whenever it got to 240 degrees, and several times it was 250 by the time I could pull it over, but he said that I saved the van from getting too much damage doing that.  Tip I have to remember but hope I never need to know it again...

So, I have a vehicle again and can go back to being Uber for the kids.  

Did I REALLY want this???? I guess so.??

Today I became Aware

 of how vulnerable I truly am. Almost helpless.  The van started overheating.  It would shoot up to 250 degrees within a few blocks so I drove home from 50th and Ames stopping every few blocks to let the motor cool.  It was 100 degrees today,  too hot to have the windows down.  Also too hot to have the heat full blast,  but I did to try to keep the motor cool. And there I sat, pausing over and over in places I would never choose to be,  old, can barely walk,  no weapons or even mace.  Alone. When finally got home I just shut myself in my room and cried.  Horrified that I had been afraid.  And Aware. 

Reality truly sucks.

PT w/Dr. J

 I started PT today for me knee and I am hopeful for the first time in s long time that I could be able to walk every day again.  Dr. Jay explained everything very clearly and then explained what he plans to do.  The ball joints in my knees are roughened and scraping when I move.  He wants to train the muscles around them to do more of the work when I move to stress the ball joints less.  Maybe.  

Maybe this will work. 

The girls in Lincoln

 The girls are in Lincoln for a few days,  I believe to help them move. The house feels STILL with them gone.  With Dave and Jami sleeping days it feels like is just Jess and me here but,  weird,  the house doesn't feel empty so much as Still. Like it's holding it's breath waiting for them to come back.  

I will like Not having to chauffeur then around.  I don't mind Jazz so much but Kira, with her "it's your OBLIGATION to drive me to work" BS is just insane.  So Much of this generation has no clue what gratitude is!!! Or obligation for that matter.  I will be relieved to be thru with them but then I will also probably be dead,  no time left to live my own life.  It was always going to happen Some Day. I used to pray every night to live until my daughters were 18. Just let me live to raise them!! and extra time to do some things that I couldn't do while raising children would just be a cherry on top. Then I chose to help raise the grandchildren.  I actually had some idea that if I could just get Jessalynn thru both school and college it would at least show the younger ones the way and maybe she would even help them.  (I'm a comedian) Then I adopted Kira and took guardianship of Jasmine. Choices I made, don't regret! but that cherry on top was pushed back so far I can't see it.  I NEVER expected to make it this long!, was always making Plan B plans for if I died before they were raised.  And whadya know,  her I am greedily hoping to at least see the beginning of Eliot's life!! But,  Oh!! Those days sister-in-law Judy and I used to talk about,  when we would just be sitting on our porch in our rocking chair passing a joint!! But not only am I allergic to THC but Judy is dead and I will see her soon.  I wonder if she made it to her porch before she died?? I'm pretty sure I won't.  I could have Elliot and my porch if I live long enough. At least I (dear God) won't be raising my great grandson. 

But I have to keep on for Jazz and Kira right now. They should at least be driving by next fall.  If they don't have cars they can have mine.  Thankful for delivery services!! Jeanette and Jenise will get the boys through.  

Jazz and Kira, please. Maybe my rocking chair.  My cherry on top.  

Maybe. 

I worry the world will go to shit before the grandchildren's lives are over.  War, the grid going down,  things I have tried to plan for in my head but absolutely won't be here to guide them thru.  They will survive or they will join me in whatever comes next.  I'll be outa here. 

Working my ass off!!

 I've been in the garden all day except I took Jazz to work at 5. It's been a 90 degree day and I sure am feeling it! I cut out the little trees trying to go thru the fence and pulled the weeds there,  too.  Dug out around the big maple tree.  Then I've been hauling dirt and filling the walkway thru the middle of the garden so I can fence it and still get at everything.  I scraped the caterpillar eggs off of every leaf on my plants and killed any little ones that had hatched when I first got out here. So glad I didn't have that surgery and give up my close up sight!! I take a break whenever I feel like I'm going to break.  Just ten minutes gets the pain under control most of the time.  Taking one now.  It will be dark soon so I have to hurry.  I want to plant a few things before it rains again.  Ok. Here I go.  

My garden

 I have to get another round of seeds in the ground today and put up my fence.  And putting up the fence means making the "walkway" I'm pouring in safe to walk in.  I have big flat (Sort of) chunks of cement that I dug up as ' stepping stones' but they are uneven, unsteady,  and I fall a LOT trying to walk on them.  I am very excited that I actually got this started early enough this year!! I'm off and sick in the spring I think because I have so many different allergies. I know I couldn't even get out of bed in the spring most of the time when we lived on the farm. New paragraph well that didn't work so well. Jamie taught me how to use speech to text on this phone and I am trying it right now since I evidently have a million typos for each sentence and not all of them are funny. New paragraph how the hell do I get it to do a new paragraph that might drive me crazy. End of paragraph okay that didn't work either.!

Thru heat and pain

 I worked until 3pm ignoring the heat and pain and got a lot done in my garden but not nearly as much as I hoped.  I'm excited that the girls will be in Lincoln next Tuesday and Wednesday and i will get a break from chauffeuring then around.  I REALLY HATE IT. And Kira's attitude makes it so very much worse.  Absolutely No Gratitude because she believes that driving them is my OBLIGATION.  Unbelievable.  She should be taking a bus with that attitude. I KNOW the bus runs to the mall and probably to the zoo or near it.  

Anyway, I will have 2 uninterrupted days but,  just my luck, it is forecast to rain on those days,  I just hope they at wrong a they so often are!!

Sherah

 I got up and started working in the garden and then remembered that Jess wanted to go to the laundromat today. I told her I wanted to just go alone and do her laundry because I didn't wasn't to stress if she was ok or worried about Nova at home.  It took some convincing but she let me do it.  Jenise showed up as I was getting ready to leave so I asked her to follow me there and we could hang out while the laundry washed.  It was great having her company!! She is very obviously pregnant now!! 🙃🫠😀 I didn't let her carry anything - I won't risk this baby for Anything!! We loaded the washer and went across to Pepperjax and got lunch.  Jenise had to go shortly after I moved the laundry to the dryers 🙁 and then I found out what was hard for me to do - folding. I forgot that my use of my arms is very limited without severe pain.  I had to stop several times and try to meditate beyond the pain! I almost gave up and just bundled it all and went home but then i pictured Jess having to finish and I got it done.  Jess did have to unload the van, it was time to admit I needed help! I took Gabriella out and piddles in the garden a little until it was time to get Kira. Then I went back to my garden until it was too dark to see what I was doing and then  I drilled our what was going to be my compost bin. Jami had come out and kept me company while I worked,  which was really nice! but then she went in and cut watermelon for us and we stood in the kitchen wolfing down the sweetest watermelon until Jess came in and reminded me I had to pick up Jasmine.  Jami rode with me and I tore out of here praying Jazz wouldn't get off on time so I wouldn't be late and she was 10 minutes late so we were good.  I hope I'm never late to get her again!! She doesn't get mad at me like Kira does,  she's smart, she is just so disappointed in me that I feel terribly.  

What a long day! I hope i don't pay for it tomorrow. 

It was The Best Birthday

 Jess really outdid herself yesterday!! I knew there was some kind of plan for my BD. Jess has asked if i was ok with going somewhere Saturday morning and then Jenise knew something and said that she might go, too, and that i shouldn't worry,  my mother approved.  Jenise said she probably couldn't go but then yesterday morning when she and Phillip walked in the house i knew it was ON and it was going to be great. Phillip drove,  (the only person on earth whose driving i trust) and Jess said we could bring the dogs so I figured we were headed for the park.  Wrong. We went to the Old Market and I saw the stalls set up and asked "Is that the Farmers Market? I've always wanted to go to that!" And we did!! It felt like being at the Renaissance Fair or a Texas flea market!! I was happy with that but then Jess said, "We have to take the dogs home for the next part" so there was more!! Next we pulled up at the Joslyn Art Museum!!!! and there was a sign saying there was a Japanese water display inside!!!! One thing I had stressed about all week was worrying what they were going to spend but these things were Free!! It was Brilliant!! Then Dave and Jami picked Kira up from work and did the shopping for Jess and Jazz didn't work so I didn't have to do Anything.  Jess made my new favorite,  gnocci,  I ate a big plate,  then amazing chocolate cake,  and knocked out. 

I got other gifts, too, and I hear there are more to come.  Nett had to work 😕 so I haven't seen her yet.  Kira gave me a water bottle like hers. I filled it with ice water right away and it still had ice in it this morning!!!! 

Ok. I guess I don't mind surviving until this birthday but I really hope I'm not starting another 22 year punishment phase!!

Happy Birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉

 I came home last night to balloons on the mail box and the house decorated.  Why do we feel embarrassed when someone does something like that???? I wish I was still asleep but had to take Kira to work so my day has begun.  

Authoring

 I started writing when I was 8. It started with a little journal that I started writing poetry in.  Then I wrote short stories,  then long poems that were stories.  In Junior High I won my first writing contest for writing "How I Escaped From the Savage Natives on a South Pacific Island", a sci-fi,  fantasy, action comedy that hung in a glass case for years at Beverly Hills Intermediate.  In 9th grade I wrote and performed in a rhyming play a la Shakespeare for Health Class that the teacher sent to Weightwtchers Anonymous who asked for permission to use and perform it.  EVERYONE,  including me! said I would end up being a Great Writer.  Well, my father changed his mind and said that I would have to give it up someday because he was sure I would be a mathematician or engineer,  but that's a different story.  My first side hustle was selling poetry to students in my high school for their poetry class.  During my teen years I would go to parties and sit in the corner and write poems for people to give to their girlfriends,  boyfriend,  etc. I loved having people tell me what they wanted to say and then making it into a poem for them.  I wrote a poem for Jim Cooper that was his final wishes.  Funny,  almost 50 years ago and I can still see Jim sitting up on a console stereo while I sat below him scribbling frantically to keep up 🙂. I have a poetry page in here somewhere that has a scattering of my poetry but it is only what I could still remember 10 years or so ago,  just a tiny fraction of what I wrote,  but at least some of the best,  including Jim's will, which wasn't nearly one of my best! just one that stuck in my head. I wrote and performed in another poetry play about dentistry while working for Dental Health Alliance at Sitel telemarketing.  I had an extra muse then,  author/artist/actor Rodger Gerberding, whose admiration pulled capability out of me that I've seldom experienced,  thank you, Rodger❣️ I was in my thirties then.  Still thinking I would eventually start writing the novels everyone expected from me.  Then I sadly wrote a couple of eulogies, the one for Jackie Lynn and the one for my mothet are also in the poetry page here.  After the one for Mom I started feeling like I was struggling to write and I have written very little since then.  I think it started with looking back and deciding that 90% of what I had written was actually pure crap.  Then it felt like my muse was slipping away.  Not Rodger, but the muse I believed had been writing for me all my life. 10 years ago while we were living in the Yellow House I started writing again on my Fire tablet and I wrote my last "good" story poem about a runaway slave traveling north to escape bondage. I felt my muse Hugely. I knew really nothing about the subject,  it was one of those that seemed to come from beyond me.  I broke that tablet in a fight with Jeremy and lost all of my writing on it.  And haven't been able to write Anything since. I am old now,  when I was sure I would be writing my novels, if I survived this long! but I have nothing.  No muse,  no brilliance.  NOTHING. I have a lot of brain damage but my muse left long before brain bleeds and White Matter Disease.  It could be partly that I don't have half the confidence.  Is that even the right word?? I no longer feel like I have anything worthwhile to offer and that feeling compounds and grows daily. Maybe it's looking at the mess of the lives I have influenced and how few people actually look up to or even have any respect for me.  Being in your 60's and realizing you have been/are a huge fuck up can destroy you!! And also my Old Age is nothing like I hoped it would be if I made it here.  If I saw old age, I saw no longer having responsibilities for kids etc. and time to do whatever I pleased. That hasn't happened!! I have 2 daughters who will always need some kind of help and I am still raising their children.  Driving kids to school and work Every Day and trying to run a household with 6 people on less than$2000 a month. True, if I really was going to Do It I have hours between driving kids most days that I could be writing ?? but again,  no muse and nothing to offer.  I'm a jet circling the tower waiting for permission to land,  in a holding pattern,  and I know now that the end is a crash.  If by some miracle I am still alive when the last grandchildren leave home and I have figured out how to sustain Jami and Jess I Could Have that "free" time. But again. No muse. Nothing to offer.  If I went totally mute no one would miss my voice, Kira would rejoice! and that's just the honest truth.  I'm not feeling any self pity there.  I don't exactly know how/why but I Know it is my own fault even if it was never my intention.  It's more than just no longer being relevant.  I'm looking every minute for the explanation,  how did I fuck it all so badly? but the answer to that is somewhere beyond me still.  Self realization is so difficult!! and there is that fear that I actually know the answer but somehow can't bring it forth because I can't bear it.  Self destructive self preservation. Involuntary protective delusion.  I don't know. Anything.

67?

 That must be correct?? Almost there. My friend Fred days he eats steak and eggs and works out twice a day to keep in shape.  I had no real reply to that message.  I just happen to still be here!! Brain aneurysm,  3 big brain bleeds,  microbleeds all over my brain supposed to be killing me.  And here I am. Pack a day.  Literally wasting away they say. And here I am.  Some people actually say "You are supposed to be here!" like they know something.  Maybe Jeanette knows.  She days this life is actually a punishment.  When she said it is thought/ hoped she mentioned that the torture is run in 22 year cycles because I was done with them.  I was 66. If I live 3 days more I will be 67. 

I'm sure I have experienced Joy. I know i have even if I don't remember. Isn't it always tinged?? It's a beautiful new baby! 😀😃😄 that you will worry about,  fear for,  and dread the day they are gone.  Tinge. It's the whole silver lining thing seen realistically.  The cloud doesn't always come first.  Not in punitive life! 

3 days.  

One of those days

 when I am 99% sure this life just isn't worth anything.  I always have some anxiety and maybe depression when my heart is "acting up". Usually you aren't even aware of your heart functioning.  It just does it's job.  Efficiently.  Quietly.  Then days like this when it feels like it is shaking around in your chest and you are pretty sure that it will just stop beating during one of these kind of days.  Not pain.  Not even really discomfort.  Just knowing it's not working right and then the awareness that everything will stop working when it gets too tired.  Too old.  Too abused to keep beating.  Then awareness that it doesn't really matter all that much.  That grip of panic that Jess, some others,  will have a hard time surviving without me,  it gets less.  Maybe it just diminishes in the eventual inevitably.  I think,  I'm So Tired. 

Another day...!!??

 I guess I'll will be surprised every day from here on out that I'm Still Here. (Sorry haters!!)  It made me think of waking at Barefoot's with Jeremy.  How I would pop up ready to get busy on whatever project I was in the middle of and Jeremy would groan that I couldn't just ever want to smoke a doobie and CHILL with him but he always wanted to be doing what I was doing so he got Up, too.  IT WAS THE BEST LIFE. Hardly seems possible if I just look at our circumstances from them.  Mom has just died.  Barefoot was in prison. I had No Family at all and Jeremy pretty much didn't either.  It was like we lived in our own little island. No money,  no car,  just living by our wits day by day. In a teepee!! I wonder now if it was ever possible for us to stay in that bubble?? If Jami hadn't called in labor with Michelle, if I hadn't returned here to be "Mom and Grandma", how long could that life have lasted??  Would we still be happily there together?? My family here would have survived without me the same as if I had died in Texas, maybe even survived Better. I used to say that I "won" the divorce with Steve because he was missing out on having the children and grandchildren. Yep. All the Joy and all the Pain and Misery of them all.  I'm a lot less smug about that Win now!! He took his new life and ran with it.  I started a new life,  then I threw it away for this reward.  I could have experienced the Pride and Joy long distance like Steven has and maybe missed all of the direct kicks in the teeth like he has. Familiarity breeds contempt. ? . 

I'm sorry,  Jeremy. I've always said that you should have stayed in Texas like I begged you to at the time.  The truth was that we should have Both stayed. None of this was your fault.  

The Stalker

 Funny how sometimes you can feel death taking a step closer.  Sometimes it is blatantly noticeable,  like a new diagnosis, but more often it is more subtle.  Like just realizing one day how old you have grown.  Or just knowing how many times you had to beat the odds to still be breathing.  I feel like death took a step closer recently.  Maybe the realization of mortality because my leg stopped cooperating?? No.  That's not death.  I think I stated that as more of a fear of living! I start wondering the where, when,  why,  how.  Ideally I wish it could happen in a hospital after a short stay.  Not in the house I leave to my family.  Not to be"discovered" dead by one of them!! The whole"I can't wake Grandma!" thing is just *shudder*.  

I really need to update a Living Will...

This Can't Walk thing

 Driving me crazy.  It's been raining so I can't do much outside. I would just sleep away the days but the leg hurts so much! there is not a comfortable position. So I am neither awake or asleep. 

A lot of driving Jazz and Kira.  Feeling bad I have to ask them to help with gasoline again but again these are different times than when Jlynn was saving for a car.  Keeping up with the household costs and the house insurance etc. is so hard to do!! Then add driving the girls over 600 miles a week...  It's just to much.  I told Dave how hard this is,  that we have a huge water disconnect, and he said he would be out the next day and went downstairs.  The next morning I told him I really didn't want that,  what I WANT is for him to start bringing in money.  He was so relieved!! He should have given me a minute more!! But he gets it now and,  BONUS!, he got rid of the monstrosity in the entryway!! I was suggesting dragging it outside and taking an axe to it but he took the time to disassemble it and put the pieces out back where I can actually make use of some of it.  

So.  I need this gloomy weather to stop and I need my left leg functional again!!!!! I guess that's asking a lot?? This body is just getting too old, I know. My fear lately is that I will be nonfunctional but ALIVE still.  What a cruel end!! and likely people wishing a cruel end on me.  But that would be cruel on those around me,  too, and hopefully no one wishes evil fit them!!

Oh and I really think things are better with Kira. I was afraid that it was fake nice at first but she really seems sincere. ??. I try very hard with her!! I know she's gotten the shit end of the stick in so many ways in her little life so far!! Yes,  she can be rude and often lacks empathy or understanding, a lot of that in ways that she has no control over! but I believe she has a good heart that will out shine all of that with a lot of love and just some things going right for her.  

CANNOT HAVE JESS UNHAPPY

 That saying years ago, "If Mamma's not happy, NOBODY IS HAPPY." 

That is Jess here.  She does her BEST to run this mess.  And it shouldn't be a Mess for her. I know a HUGE part of this is Jami. She has taken over half the basement and all of the storage areas and trashed them. She says I never bother to go look when they are cleaned up!! It should All Always Be Clean. No one here except Kira and Jazz even work outside the home.  ONLY Jess consistently works IN the home and I see her cleaning and cooking from 10 am to 6 pm EVERT DAY and then she gets out again to pick up everyone's mess in the kitchen and run the dishwasher. She knows how many dishes she should have in the kitchen!!!! Sometimes half are missing! But NOT in her room, my room, Jazz's room or even Kira's room any more.  WHERE ARE THEY. IN THE BASEMENT.  THE ONLY ROOM WE DON'T CHECK. YET. I put up a famous sign. As usual, like the one to scrape and rinse dishes. IT IS IGNORED. 

JESS IS NOT HAPPY. 

I am going to do everything to MAKE HER HAPPY. If I have to take dishes from living areas I will take Everything Around Them. Maybe the people, too.

Also, this is partly on me. The furniture piled in the Living Room. I Will take care of the Vanity and Loft BED and the books. But WHY IS THAT RIDICULOUS MONSTROSITY JAMI DRUG HOME STILL HERE????!!!!

AGAIN, I will get help to get rid of it but will EXACT A HUGE PRICE THERE,  TOO.

No one cares about pissing off, stressing, Jess. I won't care either. I'm done caring about entitled, lazy, PROBLEM, NON-CONTRIBUTING PEOPLE. 

DONE.

Oh, I'm sick of hearing Mike's car will be gone "in a few days" too.

Peek a Boos

 I see in my stats where there was a sudden spike in views around when Dave says Lindsey found and started sharing this.  Before that,  since 2009, ?, I only had some people in other countries who found this and asked to follow it to see some American life.  (Of Course I said Yes after telling them my life might not be the best depiction!) and now I still see 4 to eight views happening on each entry. I only have 5 overseas,  who don't check in every day,  and i just hope Lindsey is not one of the ones reading Every Day. I don't want her to be worried about/concerned with checking what I'm writing every day.  I just want her to get over it.  Move completely on.  Have better things to do. Are u there little girl?? If u are, I know that you were hugely offended I didn't MAKE Jami do what you wanted.  I want you to understand 2 things.  

1. If I could MAKE Jami do any thing I would have MADE her stop using drugs 40 years ago. Make her give up the meth Now. Stop seeing Mike!, shoplifting, taking other people's things,  lying, etc. And throwing her out Never Changes Anything AND she is a fricking boomerang! anyways. 

2. I KNEW you would serve No Time even if the charges stuck and, I admit, I had a small hope that you might end up with probation so u would HAVE TO stop doing drugs or risk failing a drug screen. I've already said both of those things. And I am aware that you have an image to uphold with Jake, maybe some Mannings?, and others that you don't do illegal amphetamines and being hateful to me validates your lies. But I know the truth. Not just from the way you were the last several times I saw you but since then I have talked to people who smoked meth with and got meth for you during this time. I know it definitely impacted your DHHS job's demise. I'm definitely not a prude here.  Everyone knows that Jeremy and I would get a little coke from M for concerts or big jobs like cleaning out the yellow house until his seizures and my heart condition made it a Very Bad Idea. Weekend users don't scare me. Addiction behavior Does. 

But I'm sure you have made your point to everyone that you hate me for "lying" about you. Give it a rest. Tell them you think I'm senile for believing you were using and let it go but LET IT GO.  You don't have to ever see/speak to me again.  Or you can if you want and act like I made a senile mistake and you are forgiving me. Whatever. But. Stop. This. Remember,  negative feelings/actions do more harm to the vessel that carries it than anything it is poured on. STOP  carrying this on and STOP POURING. The point is made, I'm sure.   The Mannings don't talk to me. Jake hates me.  They believe and support You. Isn't that Really what you want?? I believe IN and support you, too, you silly, silly girl. But please. I no longer check so I Don't Know, but. If you still Use. STOP. Get secret help if u have to, but I think u can Just Do It If You Haven't. 

Rain

 Yep, finally rain.  I guess I am ready for it.  I have to take a break before I am totally broken.  I often feel totally betrayed by my body and then I realize it is almost 67 years old and I marvel a little bit that it works at all. How many things do I have that old that still work?? That weird white Christmas candle might last 67 years!! 

I'll probably start some seeds, piddle around,  chat with Jeremy, take care of some overdue business like paying bills and updating applications, and hopefully clear up some of my gardening mess in the dining room. And a lot of laying around like broccoli (vegetating) 🙃

I will miss being able to be out in my garden.  Yesterday I sat down in a pile of soil that I have been moving to my raised beds,  and I realized how happy I was just sitting in a pile of dirt.  I was digging around me with a hand shovel looking for good top soil to put in my potato growing boxes and removing sticks for my compost and I was Happy. My arm might be broken,  (from a fall yesterday!), my knee is trashed and hurts like it is broken,  (probably will make an appointment to scan both while I'm laying around) and I was just 😊.  I talk to myself constantly while I work.  Not bitching about the past like at first (which was good for nothing!!) but just rambling.  If Gabriella is with me I act like I'm talking to her, to maybe make me look less crazy! (Not that I care if I look crazy!)  but I'm talking about whatever I am doing.  I haven't seem the movie "Babe" in decades but I keep saying,  "That'll do pig" every time I finish doing something! I had to Google to find out what movie it came from!! but yea, it seems to be my go-to phrase and it makes me smile a little every time so I keep doing it 🙃. Crazy Lady. Yep,  that's me!! Not shy about/ don't give a crap about admitting that because I know this Crazy Lady is one of the sanest people in my family, which makes me smile more! NOT that that's actually funny that we have So Many Crazies! but ok a little funny that a 66 year old lady with serious brain damage is one of the sanest!! Maybe that's only "funny" about the crazies who are crazy with living their delusions deliberately to defend their self righteous ignorant actions. That is hilariously bassackwards.  Maybe the wrong word there.  Self inflicted blindness is simply No Excuse. So people like that are just a joke. 

Worst Apology

 It's not funny but I laugh every time the line "That was the worst apology ever!!" goes through my head.  I think of how it came to me reading Jessalynn's text about MY journal and then again when I picture Jlynn thinking it when she read my response here.  I only have one apology for her,  for calling her names the night I threw them out.  That was just stupid trying to hurt her back because she hurt me.  You can't hurt someone who doesn't love you.  You only make them angry or, in Jlynn's case, indignant. It was childish. Otherwise,  yea, no regrets.  I'm not angry at Jeremy about it any more.  He always bitched about me to any one who would listen and No One who loved me would even listen,  let alone chastise me for whatever he was venting about.  Yes, he lied about me,  too, obviously,  but that's just his thing,  he survives on Pity. It has kept him alive,  fed,  and housed for most of his life an you have to admire that skill in him with his epilepsy and brain damage. No.  This is all on Jessalynn.  Even Brandon's abhorrent disrespect.  No One else in my family would let any one else attack me. Even if Jami is mad as hell at me she won't let any one else trash me. Oh, I forget about Lindsey.  I too often forget to add her! I love Lindsey with all my heart for the little girl she was but I never saw that little girl again after John had her.  That is heart breaking but sadly true. AND I don't think that the person she grew up to be is her "fault". Also heart breaking! I spent several years looking for who she Was but I think I started to "get it" when she said that she doesn't remember Steve and I having her until she was 6 years old or even the few times I got to see her while Mikey had her. My poor little girl!!! Any ways... no Jeremy is not to blame for any thing Jlynn or Brandon has said or done.  She is a horrific person but again,  I Loved the little girl BUT I also know that she KNOWS who took care of her almost All of her childhood.  I. did. Everything,  Everything for her because her father Always had other priorities,  and he Still Does, and mother was on bath salts and Meth an Got knows what until a few years ago.  I always had a room for her in my house, took her for doctor appointments,  immunizations, school, work,  and even drove to Lincoln whenever I could to help her get through first year in college. I guess she thinks that was all Jeremy. ?. No.  She just really doesn't give a shit.  ALL of the grand kids thought I loved Jlynn more than them,  some still do!, but that was never why.  I knew all along that Jenise was a better kid, and then a much better Human Being. She and Jazz have always been just amazing people. Kira is pretty rough now but was the sweetest thing growing up! and I think she'll pull thru being a rebelling teenager and be amazing again,  too. Jeanette's kids had both parents when they were little and then Jeanette did the best she could as a single parent except maybe the 6 months she was goo goo over Jon Ways. I had them then and with Jeremy's help and Jenise playing mother! to the boys I hope we did good with them.  I remember how sweet it was when Jeremy was taking Robby to Boy Scouts and we both always went to the kids events.  Almost none of their parents did any of that!! And my poor Shy. The Most Heartbreaking one of the bunch when she was little and now, too.  It's hard to believe how we often had 6 or more grandchildren living with us!! They were all so loving! but I did see the darkness in Jessalynn,  the rage in Robby, and the hurt in Kira from her parents that I knew could all make them turn out like they are now.  Kira Will pull through.  We need to get help or something with Robby! and Jlynn, well,  I'm pretty sure she will never be better unless she somehow gets a therapist who holds up a mirror or she goes through a tragedy that makes her SEE herself.  If I ever really had a "favorite" of course it would be and is Jenise.  From the first time I laid eyes on her in her car seat in Rob's car,  when I whispered,  "Mom? Are you in there?" and Jeanette said she never saw Jenise react like she did with Any One and Nett didn't even know what I asked Jenise! (All because Mom said she would come back in one of my grand children and Jenise was born next!) Whatever.  I have to mention my Riley, here,  too. I think Jess was first to see that he was "high functioning " autistic.  I knew, too, in first grade when I would help him with his homework.  I had to figure out how to make math make sense to him but when I did he would just Light Up and show brilliant understanding but then I would have to show him again over and over for it to "stick". Nett and I both have fought for him to get better teaching at school and only this year, when he is a sophmore in high school! does OPS believe his diagnosis!!!! My lost little guy! but he is so off the charts Loving!! Last night he called stranded somewhere and his phone died before I got where he was or told him that yes I would get him.  I took off from here like a crazy person with emergency flashers on running red lights and when he wasn't at the last location 360 showed for him,  I started driving the area in wider and wider circles until I had him. He did manage to call me,  someone let him charge his phone??, and he gave me a street name a few blocks from where I was.  I drove 20 miles circling the Benson areas! but he is just terrifying! Without GPS he has no idea how to get around Omaha and he will hitch rides with strangers always believing he can Tell who won't hurt him. I tell him that abusers couldn't get victims unless they could convince people they were "ok" and he gets that but Forgets that. I'm not nearly as crazy protective with any one else but Riley not only Needs it he is just Worth it. 💓

Crap. This was just a little entry about "the worst apology ever" and I just rambled around. Then again,  I will be 67 in a few weeks! (if I live that long!!)  and this is MY Journal do I get to ramble all I want. Hell, I could Lie in here like Jlynn accuses me! if I wanted but what would be the point of that????? No clue. 

See ya!!!!

Brain Scan day!!

 I'm waiting for my MRI. This is always scary. Right after the last one was All Clear Jeremy and I got in that wreck and I ended up with 3 brain bleeds,  one right where my aneurism was repaired!! They said my brain tissue would die everywhere the blood touched and I lost the ability to understand what I read and the ability to hear music in my head,  or how to play the guitar and piano,  I couldn't picture a single cord. An i have more blanks in my long term memory and serious damage to my short term memory.  Then they scanned a month after the accident and said the big bleeds had shrunk but they saw micro bleeds all over my brain.  I asked Dr Gold if this meant that I was in serous trouble and he said Yes, the first time he ever answered that question that way! I also have Severe White Matter Disease (which I believe is a fungal issue but it's hard to get doctors to take that idea serious!) so my brain is a wreck.  But. THEN my brain damage brother reminded me that the Brain and the Mind are different things and,  while they have mapped the Brain NO ONE has figured out what the Mind is! He told me to read a hundred year old way- before-its-time book called "Secrets of the Ages" and it opened my Mind to all the possibilities!!! I hear music,  can play some music,  and can understand the written word!!! It's been slow progress but IT IS PROGRESS. 

Whew! Scan over.  They put me in a special high definition MRI because of my new allergy to contrast.  It's a tight fit with a cage over my face holding my head in place.  NOT for the claustrophobic! They turned on the Beatles and began. I guess I'll find out tomorrow what my Forcast is.

4 days and no test results.  I hope that doesn't mean the results are bad or that something went wrong with that special MRI.

No one thinks they need to know

... survival in trauma and maybe they don't.  All my life,  since I was a kid,  I have studied survival skills. When I was 11 I started going on "survival hikes", hiking through Texas fields looking around and noticing different things that would help me survive if I was lost or stranded.  I still study these things but now,  in my old age,  know I myself will most likely never need to know them.  I am terrified that my descendants will someday need to know such things and I won't be here to help them! At best I will get an eye roll if I try to pass anything on when I know it Could Be necessary to know some day.  These days the fears are war, which had always been a fear to be ready for,  and something new.  The grid going down. If you think through what that could mean for communities it is absolutely terrifying if it lasts more than a few months.  When there is no power or running water and deliveries Stop. Everyone assumes it will just never happen when it is always just a heart beat away!! Terrifying. I try to see my daughters trying to lead this family safely through.  Jami knows the most. Jess is the most able to meet an unexpected tragedy.  Jeanette knows a lot but will be in the most in danger of not surviving without medical help.  I most likely won't live to see it happen. And I hope they don't either!! 

Just one of the many stupid things I worry about that I can do nothing about.  I garden.  Hope someone will carry that on when I am gone, at least keep the idea alive in case, God forbid! they actually need to know How. I'm leaving a map of what I'm doing,  hopefully not just digitally but a hand written one.  Just in case. 

There were a couple of deer in the neighbors backyard this evening.  Kira reacted like seeing aliens! They are all so distant from Life. Scary.

Sun and Sleepless

 This heat isn't nearly what I grew up with in Texas but it is kicking my butt.  Kira says the UV index has been really high,  something I knew nothing about until recent decades,  but maybe I'm feeling it.  The sun at 80 degrees here is painful.  It hurts my skin.  Not like sunburn but it burns. Trying to just work in the garden in the cooler morning and evening isn't enough and just too many things come up being The Driver here.  I'm hauling soil now and filling just the 3 inch high beds is taking me forever.  My garden will be very late and I definitely will be buying some seedlings. Almost all of mine are now dead. 

It didn't help that Riley called around 1am. I jumped up sure Jeanette was dying again out some other disaster! Riley's allergies were making him sick.  Turns out Nett was home from work and had already told him his illness was likely allergies but it made him angry and sure she wasn't really trying to help him so he called me.  Poor Riley! and Poor Jeanette! He really thinks he is dying when he gets sick and that his mom just isn't helping him.  Then he calls me.  He usually believes me,  even tho I have said the exact same thing Jeanette did,  maybe that's Why he believes me?  but it is hard on all 3 of us.  Only Riley could get away with waking me like this! because I know he can't help it. I should write down his complete diagnosis sometime so I can remember it,  but things like this are all part of it.  We are trying so hard to figure out how to help him grow up,  Jeanette understands way more than I do and she is often lost,  too. I would give my life to help Riley! Ok. Yea, that doesn't sound like much when I so often seem to not value my own life.  Just a thing people say to express your much something means?? Something I will delete later when I find a better way to express this??? 

I am cooking in the high UV with sleep deprivation and too little being done!!

Dang it

 I've been trying to time the sun where I have framed and dug my garden and I'm afraid it might only get 5 hours of full sun!!! I'll check me closely tomorrow but it is just too late and too much work to start over.  I'm a little proud of the whole Did It All By Myself thing but if anyone checked it with a T-square and level it wouldn't rate very high!! BUT getting everything (or anything!) exact using reclaimed wood of all shapes and sizes would have been a hellofa job!! I could have redone things until I got it exact but,  well, I'm not! Actually,  I DON'T think I could.  I intended to make the bed at least 8 inches high before I started planting but it can't wait any longer.  Hopefully I can add to it after it's planted?? I have 56 square feet framed with about a 4 × 3 space at the north end for corn with beans and peas climbing it.  I don't know what to do with the asparagus yet,  the space for corn might be the best place? Or I can start it in a crate and dig a separate garden for it after I plant the 56 sq feet???? We can't harvest the asparagus for at least 2 years. The strawberries, whatever survives,  won't really produce for at least a year either. 

Dave is mowing, dandelion seeds flying everywhere,  I wish we had done it before they all went to seed!!! Oh well. At least they are nutritious,  Jenise, you will never die of starvation here if the grid goes down etc!!

It's dark.  I worked in the SE corner of the yard until I couldn't see what I was doing and then I came on the deck and potted my beautiful Mother's Day flowers Kira gave me.  😃😃😃🥰😍❤️❤️ Maybe she doesn't Hate me completely??? I am hopeful.  Maybe too hopefull but it feels good for now.  

Now maybe a shower. Besides sweating in the garden all day I stupidly walked by Dave mowing on the wrong side and am covered in dandelion seeds and grass clippings and whatever else the lawnmower was throwing at me.  I think I felt a few rocks 🤔.

Lull after the storm

 Ok.  Jeanette is alive.  Everyone got whey they needed to go (although Jazz was pissed she was 5 minutes late to work) and we are all alive.  Last night I Jeremy was asking about Nett and I told him I was afraid of outliving her, or any of them! and I really am afraid Jeanette is going to lose this battle.  Please God No! But,  what did die during the last 2 days are most of my seedlings.  They were at a critical stage of repot or plant or die. They are mostly dead today 😑 but they are replaceable.  I just don't know if I have time to start seeds again,  I might have to break down and buy seedlings.  I hoped the bare root strawberries were the only plant stays I'd have to buy this year.  Oh well.  Always an emergency several times a year within the family.  I have my doubts about how much more I can physically do,  too. The left side of my body seems to be really messed up.  Then there will be the weather to contend with.  Oh and something I hadn't even considered.  The neighbor on the east side,  where my garden is,  is an avid ornamental plant grower,  she might even be selling them like I was in Texas,  and she uses chemicals for weed control and likely for fertilizer,  too. She is super sweet,  we talk energy we are both out back,  and she said she wouldn't plant anything tall on her side that might shake my vegetables.  I told her not to worry but she insisted it if fine.  I am not about to complain about the chemicals.  I have been googling the problem.  It said what I expected,  put up a barrier and leave a gap between our gardens. Oh amc how I've already cultivated that first 2 feet of soil! Google doesn't say how wide the gap needs to be,  I maybe should start completely over.  Damn I should have thought about this!! I saw that she had a garden yard, I just never considered that people use poisons instead of saving the planet except big government farmer!! My Bad. 

Jeanette in the hospital again!

 Something went wrong with her hysterectomy,  they think because of the connective tissue disorder,  and she is in Lakeside Hospital again 😭. I'm picking up Jazz from work,  I got here too early,  but I want to go to Jeanette.  I'm worried.  She just has too much go WRONG! I don't believe I would survive without Jeanette!!!  

And I'm supposed to be worried that people don't like/agree with thing I write in my journal.  I'm building and digging a big garden for the family,  almost ended up in the hospital myself today from severe dehydration working out in the full sun every day, driving 600 miles a week just ruining the kids around, and that was supposed to matter? What is the matter with people? If they don't want to love me they don't have to.  I am not ashamed of who I am.  I'm not always right but I have the best intentions for my own.  What else do they think I should be?

I see I wrote about the dehydration earlier, silly me! and that's why we are told not to depend on Dr Google - we scare ourselves with diabetes and Kidney failure search results when we just need a drink of water!!!!

Uh oh

 I might be sick,  like something really wrong! My mouth has been super dry for several days no matter how much I drank and now I haven't been able to pee since early yesterday.  I really noticed the morning because I ALWAYS have to pee when I wake up. 

My spelling has looked really bad because I have been using the slide texting because of my arthritis. I've been going back and correcting this entry,  had to fix six mistakes already.  

Bubble Wrap Jenise

I do wish I could just bubbly wrap her so no one can ever hurt her.  Sara is flipping out on Jenise over Sammy,  the guinea pig Sara gave her that died last week.  Blaming Jenise, making her cry,  pissing me off.  I know Sara is just over the top because she's had a few too many deaths lately but picking on Jenise,  especially while she is pregnant,  is inexcusable.  

Hopefully this blows over soon. 

Pfft! What drama!!

 I read through a lot of this all the way back to the beginning.  Why did my typing get so very progressively worse thru the years??! Probably because I use the slide texting Nett taught me years ago.  

Oh what pitiful misery to read thru the breakup with Jeremy! But time (and a lot of venting in a journal!) really does does heal almost everything! (except losing Herbert. NOTHING makes that pain better😭) 

I am So OK. I built and dug my garden, planting it now,  and it is a beautiful day.  

I was up all night texting with Jeremy.  Funny I hate him the least of all the people who decided our break up was their business.  Maybe they learned when it's time to go home?? Not my problem now.  He's staying at his brother's and bewildered that he is the Calm one in his brother's house! He is finding that I was correct that his family would feel less able to be constantly correcting his behavior. He's the best of the lot!! I don't mind helping him right now,  it's what I've been doing for years but with him There I don't have to really deal with his Growing Pains.  He was asking about himself as a father figure,  why did I say he was good until the kids got old enough to talk back.  I sent him the Ukranian artwork entry in here I titled "Jeremy The Father" and he liked it.  Was pleasantly surprised that I had saved and dedicated that to him a year ago. (He never snooped in my journals over our 22 years.) Yes,  he has some choices of decency that half of my family can't even comprehend.  But again, it is a beautiful day. 

Jessica day 10 COVID

 Very sad that Jess still tested positive today.  I believe she has been the sickest by far but still hoped she was clear.

Jeremy still tests positive. He says he has had no symptoms but I don't believe him. One, he had that seizure Day 1. 

Crap. I accidentally moved this.  This was obviously from the COVID pandemic. 

Jenise Saturday🧡Jeanette Today

 Lucky me❣️❣️❣️ Jenise came Saturday and I got her a chair to set her pregnant butt down by my garden so she could visit with me while I finished turning it,  *and I did finish!" And then we snuck off to Blue for sushi again.  Then this afternoon Jeanette came for a visit. I've been kinda sick so I couldn't get back out in my garden since Saturday so the company was awesome.  I love the ways Jeanette has grown.  It feels like we have trade places most of the time now - she is the one teaching me and I am thrilled.  I used to always say I didn't just want my kids to learn what I knew but to always strive to go beyond.  That that was human evolution.  She is proof of that.  Not that children have to surpass you to teach you.  Once I was showing a prism to a small boy,  asking him what he saw in it so I could then explain how it worked and formed the colors.  I set it in the light and asked him what he saw and he said "I see the world". My lesson froze in my mouth and I asked him what he meant and he said "Just look! There's you,  and me,  and everything in this room and everything out the patio door" and sure enough,  the world was reflected in that prism!! Lesson over. Lately Jeanette is showing me everything in the prism. 

22 years

Jeanette says my life has run in 22 year cycles of punishment.  In that I had 2 22 year marriages. I know that anyone who had been in a relationship that long knows that there will be many problems and disagreements to overcome and that you will both go through times of loving each other so much that it hurts and times that you hate each other so much that it hurts.  You just grow with and from these times and it's a victory every time you come through both loving each other again.  This can happen in both good and toxic marriages.  But,  good relationships can end with deep love and toxic relationships will often end in tragedy.  This is from not just mine but watching family and friends navigate relationships for the 60 + years. I have been paying attention since watching my mother's first marriage to my father. That one had to end with his death.  I'm not sure how it would have ended had be lived.  He was Abusing the 3 children and she knew and was turning a blind eye but that probably would have gone toxic.  It sure was for the 3 children! From there I went into several relationships starting at 14 years old that all ended toxic. At 20 years old I married Steven.  It was a fairy tale marriage for the first years that started going toxic when we found out that our church elder was raping our daughters. Therapists told us that very few marriages survive such a thing. We tried like hell.    We stuck it out for 7 years longer than we should have,  the toxicity was off the charts by then. I went straight from there into the relationship with Jeremy.  I never intended for it to end up being a "relationship". He was 22 years younger than me  and just wrong in so many ways but then Mom died begging me to stay safe with Jeremy,  "He will never leave you!" such prophetic words from a dying women whose O2 level was 60!!!! She did it because she knew that I had no one at the time but Jeremy and my brother Mike and she didn't trust Mike! So Jeremy and I built a life together in Texas.  He built me a teepee when I mentioned that I would like to have one and he dug a huge pound for Mom's water lilies and Koi that I also promised to take care of.  It was the Best time of my life.  Jami and Jess came for my mother's funeral and didn't say a single word to me.  Acted like I didn't exist. Jeremy set up a dart board and gave me a blow dart gun.  He put my family's names on the target and told me to shoot at them.  His method of therapy.  It actually helped.  🙃 We had a phone and somehow Jami started calling.  Then Jeanette.  Like nothing happened.  All friendly.  I just accepted it even though it pissed Jeremy off. I didn't need explanations or apologies,  wouldn't have got them if I had wanted them,  that's not how any of them work.  I just wanted my family back in some way. Then Jess started calling,  too. We went to visit when Jenise was born,  had to see her!! and saw enough of my daughters that I didn't want to return to Nebraska.  Then a year or so later Jami called saying she was pregnant,  in labor,  sitting in a bathtub,  freaking out because she was on drugs.  I begged Jeremy to stay in Texas,  but he insisted on coming with so we took a train to Omaha.  Got stranded here.  Found out Mikey was strung out,  too, and their house was a filthy pit. They lost the kids.  We worked with Mikey's parents to clean the house to get the kids back and Pat took us in.  Out of the fire into the frying pan.  His house was even filthier so we cleaned it, too. Picked up Huge piles of dog poop in varying stages of decomposition.  Pat said he didn't pick them up until the were dried out and hard and Jess wouldn't pick them up at all.  This was with 2 huskies living in the house for years.  My SSI came thru and we found a house,  took Jess and Jlynn with us and moved. 

This belongs in a different section of this,  doesn't it? I'll move it if/ when I finish it. 

Wait,  I was on the 22 year thing.  So,  by Jeanette's theory,  what is Now?? I won't last another 22 years. Life is pretty darn good.  I wish we had a little more money,  and we could if I could move Jeanette in.  Will hopefully be able to do that soon? But life Is Good right not.  Still sad about the break in the family but really that if just Jessalynn now and that sadly is mostly hard on Jess. If it weren't hot she feels I wouldn't care to much any more.  I have plenty.  I feel rich when Jeanette is around.  Really rich.  Jenise,  too, they give me that cup runneth over feeling.  It doesn't sound like another 22 years of punishment.  ?? I'm even in a good place with Jeremy.  I just needed him to Know he really could survive, thrive,  and be happier with his own family.  I wasn't going to stress over him a lot more but it is good to know he is OK. (Maybe I was his punishment,  too.!) Whatever,  I don't believe in Happily Ever After. Death will cut that shirt if nothing else! But maybe Peace. I'll take that. 

Thank you Lindsey 💕💕💕

 I tried to Google my name looking for my blog.  No luck. Then Dave finally explained that Lindsey somehow found this site and sent it to almost everyone we know. You know,  I'd write this,  usually things I wish people knew,  didn't get to say to them,  didn't think anyone would ever care to read this (except maybe Jenise, Jeanette and Jami after I am dead). I was just blowing off steam sometimes like therapists tell people to do to get over things.  But Lindsey made that dream come true.  In so many great and hilarious ways. I might not remember everything any more,  might be dealing with inaccurate information,  but I have never written Anything I didn't believe to be true at the time (Who lies in a journal???) and nothing that I wouldn't say to someone's face but never thought I would get to.  So, sincerely Lindsey, THANK YOU. And I do love you very much.  You are one of the very few people that I am estranged from that I truly miss. You are about the only one who I don't blame for a thing. The only one with full right to be upset with your mother (although I wonder that none of that is directed at the enabler of your childhood situation). I love you. Always will.

Who hears Grandma's sex life

 Jeremy tried for years to find someone to bitch about me to.  He was shot down by Jami, Kirk, Jess, Dave and Jeanette, who spit in his face. Especially when he tried to talk about our sex life, none of them wanted to hear about their mother, grandmother, or mother-in-law's sex life or lack thereof until he found Jessalynn and Brandon to listen and sympathize. The flip side of this is that I also went from having sex all the time to zero. I would have loved to find a good boyfriend, husband etc but he wouldn't physically leave and free me and, bitch that I am,  I'm not like that.  And we are talking 10 years ago.  I had Lots of offers. 2 men who had been after me for all my life who were then millionaires.  Not that I ever considered money when choosing a partner,  example 2 past husbands and Jeremy (legally  my husband in Texas). Those 2 suitors died last year, and I'm dying now so it's really not fair to start with anyone. But it would have been really nice to have a good man to grow old with.  Jeremy inadvertently stole that from me,  too.   I let him steal it by not having whatever it took to force him to leave. 

Wait,  I gotta add somewhere,  yes,  I always said Jeremy was excusable because of his disabilities,  but I realized that is total bullshit.  We'll,  mostly bullshit. I finally realized that he definitely was capable of controlling his worst issues. Brandon made that plain as day - if Jeremy could always "behave " when Brandon was around,  sometimes for Long Days! and Jeremy never lost it. The house breathed sigh of relief when Brandon was coming because we all knew we would get a break from the Anger, yelling, and just plain meanness.  How did someone unable to control himself do that?? And with the kids, and yes, there were a lot of them, and they could be a handful! but he NEVER has lost his temper with his favorite,  Jasmine. He could be mad as hell about something a child did, cussing and making threats, and if he found out the culprit was Jasmine he cooled down immediately.  How was he able to do that?? It's like him saying he couldn't read studying for his CNA so I read his text book to him for weeks, until I had laryngitis and couldn't,  and he said,  "OK, give me the book,  I'll read it". Playing me.  Like he played everyone.  He supposedly hated being reminded that he was disabled but he sure did use it to his advantage whenever and however he could.  But it took until Brandon,  that huge, stark, difference in him,  THAT finally made it clear as day. His survival technique is his pity parties and he gets away with it mostly by his act that he doesn't want anyone to know about his epilepsy etc., so everyone pitied him all the more until he HAS SOMEONE SUPPORTING HIM FOR 22 YEARS. I was a moron to not get it sooner but not as big of a Moron as the ones still dancing at his pity party.  And I do even now still love Jeremy. Even have some admration for the brilliance of his game and gratitude, peace, that I know he will be OK.

No, Jessalynn

I'm sorry you maybe misunderstood things right from the start.  When I said Brandon's name,  I told you both right away,  I wasn't inviting Brandon to get involved.   I didn't even need for him to wake from his good dream.  I just needed to say the name and remind Jeremy that Brandon was in the house so he would turn into Brandon/ Jeremy.  I didn't then or ever invite you two into my relationship or breakup.  It would have been real decent of you guys if you if you had left when you realized what was going on.  It was none of your business and neither is my journal. If I could have "drug" you anywhere I would have drug you out of My Breakup in My House. Jami saw this on a phone I loaned her and asked if it was ok that she read it and I said Yes, but that it was the good, bad, and ugly.  She. Asked. I started writing on this site during the MRSA epidemic until I was invited to write for a big MRSA campaign.  My followers followed me there except a few stragglers who commented on this a few times.  I think that all stopped by 2014. So this became where I worked things out and let off steam.  I understand that you felt free to read it since it was still on a Public format and that you have zero respect for any of my boundaries.  Maybe it's your generation? I do love you Jessalynn.  I wonder if you read it all or just skimmed thru looking for your own names?? I suspect the latter. Maybe you would have seen how very much I adored Jeremy. You guys have been together a minute so I get it. 

After 22 years you go thru times when you deeply love and times you hate the guts of your partner.  Hopefully you make up and grow each time  but sometimes it becomes unhealthy to continue.  Lots of people just fear Change, like Jeremy.  I've known and told him for years that this was over and he should go and be happy.  He had to be forced.  But we are both happier now.  That's all that should matter.  I can see you guys being offended if you read the journals of everyone you know.  That's why we aren't supposed to do it.  What's that saying? Something about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good about themselves?? I wrote a lot more about loving Jeremy than about hating him.  Did you go back and read when this started on that nightmare Christmas, too?? 

It's therapy to write.  Helps kept your head uncluttered and work things out.  I don't know how you stumbled across this but it is Mine. I tell it like I see it here.  You guys need to just watch the moats in your own eyes. Leave the speck in mine alone.  I'm pretty sure you have better things to do. 

PS: I'm not nice to people who I think are bad for my family and I want them to leave.  I'm pretty damn nice to others. Give them rides to work and never ask for gas money. Lose $7,000 for helping them. I treat people in general disgustingly like that. 

How do you treat people?

God, I see your smug faces saying "Really good"! The holier than thou thing, I hope you get over it. Maybe someday you will wonder if you weren't perfect in all of this.  I seriously doubt it.

I am sorry for the name calling,  Jessalynn.  I know it was childish,  I was lashing out like I do when hurt just wanting to hurt you back.  Stupid, too. If throwing you out didn't hurt nothing would.  Pretty sure I was still wounded the worst but,  it definitely took a minute! but I got over it.  For a minute I though you had, too, especially for your mother's sake! but I never thought Brandon did. He's not nearly as good an actor.  

A few old posts that nosy people missed

 My Jeremy: from My  2021 Journal titled "Jeremy"

What I already wrote here wasn't really about Jeremy. My tendancy to waunder and ramble leads me astray.  

Jeremy is both a very simple and a very complicated person. 

First, Who He Is was altered by brain damage as a child. He had a head injury, possibly two head injuries, that damaged his right frontal lobe causing epilepsy. Then there had likely been more damage from the grand mall seizures. On top of that, his mother did drugs including LSD during pregnancy and he was severely abused growing up. 

Jeremy, the Basic Person he is, is a beautiful soul. That was all my mother saw when she looked at him. When she chose him for me. Sadly you don't see it very often any more, but Jeremy's eyes are honest and full of heart. My family have pretty much beat that out of him for the last 19 years but I can still see it. That is terrible. From Jami and Mikey throwing him out while I was in the hospital, making him cry telling him he Wasn't Family to Jeanette spitting in his face to Jess and Jessalynn demanding I throw him out, he has been thoroughly abused by us. I've always been in the middle of this and too often protecting my daughters instead of him. 

Mom said he had true Loyalty and would take care of me forever. My promise to stay with him let her die in peace. 

Could she have possibly Known?? 

Jeremy has been so beaten down by us that I can barely see the man my mom left me with. But he is still Here. 

Jeremy was the Only person in my life when we met and for more than the first year. We were deliriously happy most of the time. Every day was bright and shiny. An adventure. And we weren't living "easy". We were mostly broke living in either a broke down trailer or in a teepee Jeremy built on Barefoot's land. We collected junk and sold it along with houseplants I started and Jeremy dealt a little weed and sometimes he sold plasma for money. Life was very simple. Jeremy was like a genie in a bottle doing everything to grant my every wish. I took care of things like figuring out how to get the medication we needed, free medical care, and keeping up with anything legal and I did most of the cooking and cleaning although he helped with everything I did and he took care of Everything Else. I said I would love to live in a teepee and the next day he made an amazing one out of long metal rods and painter's canvas he found. I wished I had a pond for Mom's koi and he found a pond liner and dug once for me. Everything felt magical. 

I was depressed and suicidal when we met. My entire family had cast me out after my 22 year marriage ended except for Mom. She was the only reason I was still alive when I met Jeremy and I had no intention of surviving her. 

My brother had me committed not long after I got to Houston. My mother said it was because of his long vendetta against me for suggesting his wife should take the kids and run when he was strung out on meth years and years ago. And she said it was also part of a plan to be sure I didn't inherit the 2 million dollar lawsuit she expected to collect from Dow Corning. Whatever. In Harris County Psyche I befriended a woman named Stacy. She had perfectly sculpted eyebrows and we were locked in a psych ward with all our belongings taken away. I knew she had tweezers!! We were both on a 10 day hold and we ruled the ward together after teaming up. 

Several of us agreed to meet when we got out. We were all homeless planning to be each other's support system. Stacy got out first and I went to our meeting place, Smiley Inn, when I got out. When she walked in with Jeremy I had the feeling of Destiny that I never experience anymore although I had no clue of what we would Be. A few of the others joined us but it narrowed down to Jeremy, Stacy and me and then just him and me. 

Jeremy was very young. 27? and in many ways he was even younger for his age. It was like no one had raised him to survive in this world beyond being a teenager, and pretty much no one had.

Quickly, Jeremy had one positive influence in his life, his Nana, his father's mother. His father died in a traumatic car crash with Jeremy in the car when he was 4. He lived with his mother and who ever she was with until he was 12 and then she moved to Oklahoma leaving him with her last boyfriend, who called himself Barefoot, an abusive small time drug dealer. Jeremy stayed with Barefoot until shortly before I met him when Barefoot threw him out. 

Jeremy had a big windfall inheriting $30,000 from his Nana when he turned 18. Barefoot and his mother talked him out of a few big chunks of it that he never saw again. 

Jeremy actually got his diploma from Sam Rayburn High School and was offered social security disability that he turned down. He lives as much as possible in denial of his epilepsy. The stigma of it left him deeply scarred. Even now, he hates for anyone to know that he is epileptic and refuses to acknowledge any limitations he has from it. 

I'm sure Barefoot made this worse. He referred to Jeremy by a slur nickname I won't dignify by naming here and he beat him severely until Jeremy beat him. I know he used to put Jeremy in a trash can for punishment so its easy to assume how degrading Barefoot was for him.

It really makes me sick to write that knowing that my girls have treated him even worse the last 20 years!!

When I decided that I had to return to Omaha and be Mom and Grandma again I begged Jeremy to let me go alone. I knew that I would no longer be able to be the person I had been with him. I knew that my daughters would probably be unwilling to accept him with me. I told him this over and over but he still wanted to come to Nebraska.  Even i never dreamed how badly he would be received. 

____________________________________________

Jessalynn strikes: from 2021 journal "MY GRANDCHILDREN: 

____________________________________________

This one hurts the most. Easy Why. The one I believed loved me most. The one I put the most into. 

The one who finds me, personally, disgusting.

She said it is because of how I treat Jeremy. Her mother is almost always mean to him and she went to stay with Jeanette who has literally spit in his face. Plus she ragged on me to throw him out for Months and talked of nothing but how much she hates him.

The girls I called The Apple of My Eye, and then my Unicorn, who I would have given my life for. Says. I'M. DISGUSTING.

I knew she was mean. Overlooked it time after time. She would laugh at people I pitied. She never forgave a slight. But I always thought she was better than she was. She cried over TV shows!! I just knew there was real Heart there just hidden by Youth. 

I was wrong.What happened with Jessalynn Christmas was caused by an old problem caused by a mistake I seem to make over and over. Or maybe it's just the way it is because I'm so flawed. My grandchildren, one of my children, have No Respect for me. Maybe I don't think about it enough? I don't seem to realize that someone doesn't  respects me until it slaps me in the face. It has to be my fault. I assume that people respect me because I see myself as someone who Should Have the respect of people. I manage to take care of my family no matter how little I have to do it. I have good morals that I base my life on and try to teach others. 

But I must be just totally missing something. 

I think back over my relationship with Jessalynn and see now that she has never really Treated me with respect. We have spent a lot of time together. I have been the person she turned to for advice and help or just the one she called if she was sad or sick. But I have allowed a large measure of closeness that you wouldn't expect in a Grandmother especially as she's gotten older. I kept thinking that this is a Good Way to be with children even though it never works. Jessalynn has always felt comfortable to treat me with disrespect. Jessalynn's text, "I thought we would discuss this maturely but" or some such crap that would never be said to an adult who had respect. I think I teach them manners but Jessalynn didn't have the basic courtesy to not call her host "disgusting" while in her home.

Back it up. One huge thing about what happened was the hypocrisy. Months she spent berating me for Not throwing Jeremy out of the house and I not only let her do it, I took up for Jeremy but also apologized for not throwing him out for her. At most I explained over and over why I wouldn't. What I Should Have Done was tell her it was none of her business or at least let her know how disrespectful to Him it was to sit in his home and say these things. I did not. So when she jumped sides she fully expected me to just take it.

Now, the fact that I didn't wasn't because she finally went too far. It likely had little to do with the content of her new complaint. It was Christmas Eve. The pain and stress of preparing for the holiday this year was almost unbearable. I was feeling like I was crossing a finish line. Jeremy was almost done cooking dinner. The kids would open the few presents we were able to buy this year and it would be over for another year. And There She Was. 

I go back to the fact that I would have NEVER dreamed to speak to my mother or grandmother in such a way. Especially not on Christmas Eve in their home!

And I don't think She would have spoken to any other parent or grandparent that way. 

So, the problem is Me.

Either I allow a level of familiarity or don't command a level of respect that made her feel she was right. Likely both.

Whatever. 

I HAVE TO fix this before it happens again. I still have Kira and Jazz in my house and others in their homes. Sadly, I am now questioning all familiarity with them. They like to tease and play, Kira has a thing where she calls everyone Loser. Do I shut her down from teasing Jeremy and me like that so she doesn't feel comfortable telling us our behavior is disgusting some day?? 

I really hate this. 

This House

 I often think I should say something about this house.  This Home.  How unbelievably peaceful it feels,  especially after living in the war zone on Meredith! I almost always feel safe here.  Even going outside at night.  Jess walks Nova here,  makes about a half mile loup around the house.  Most of the people around here are gone owners and I see very little gang activity even though we are still in North O. At the other house it was Loud music and people yelling,  drunk,  high, etc. at least every week ends.  I haven't seen one night like that here.  

We might actually be the most dangerous house around here.  

Jami stress

 She is so very much stress on a household! I wish I could fix it but I don't think I can.  Jami just will Not work to get along.  Not really.  She tried to act like she is " conforming " to 'family life' but it is always just trying to get away with whatever she can and denying doing anything wrong whenever she is called out,  exactly like living with a juvenile delinquent who happens to be 48 years old.  A lot of it is just the Meth. The life style and the people it brings.  I tell her to Keep That Out of Here but she just sneaks,  does whatever she wants. Kira was trying to explain how her mom must be laughing in my face all of the time and I had to tell her that I'm already fully aware. More like slapping me in the face. It's the drugs,  the bad traffic,  the mess,  the total disrespect for everyone in this house.  If confronted she always claims that She is the Victim.  But she isn't at all.  Some days it feels like we are all being held hostage here.  And I am out front taking the bullets when they come because no one else dares confront her but I am always asked to.  It's much like Jeremy.  Everyone said it was my Fault he was here (until it wasn't) (then I was the bad guy) and they all say it is my fault that she is here.  It is.  I let her move in against everyone's wishes.  Maybe Every Time.  

I just know we can't go on like this.  Shouldn't go on like this.  Won't go on like this. 

How to make it end???

And should I? I don't forget that this house chose Jeremy over me. I only had Jami here.  I'm not sure how I'd survive here without her.  If she had been here for that last confrontation with Brandon it would have gone completely differently. I was standing all alone.  

And that is something easily harder to deal with than Anything Jami does. 

Jeanette laser eye surgery

 Today the Dr is going to repair the holes he found in Jeanette's retina a couple of weeks ago.  It is her only remaining eye so it's quite terrifying.  I believe it will go well but don't know what the future of this last she will be.  She was unable to go in far her she check up for 2 years, I think she is supposed to go every 6 months,  and that is likely why this got so bad. I've been so afraid of her going blind ever since this started and I'm sure she is,  too. Jess and I talk about it,  about how she will Have To help here,  especially now that she will have this house. 

But I pray she has many years of vision left!!

Talking to myself

 When I'm told I am taking to myself I have often jokingly replies that I do it because I am the only one who listens to me. That's really not a joke any more.  Partly old age. Partly being surrounded by ass holes. But yesterday I intentionally talked to myself while working outside,  letting myself say all of the things I don't say out loud.  Over an hour I ranted letting it All Out.  I was hoping it might release some tension. Nope. Pretty sure it made it worse!