steele trap

My mom is very demanding and grasping. Every since Ethan was born, she has managed to keep me in the house because she would only babysit at certain times and for certain reason, and that is her right. She didn't have a baby, I did, and it's fine if she doesn't want to be a full time mother. I could go out with him, but, quite frankly, I wouldn't have any fun that way. So now that Ethan has gone out of town for two weeks, I was looking forward to some away time. I was trying to make plans for Friday during the day, and my mom said wistfully, "You're going out? I hope we don't NEED you for anything." You see, dad's eye surgery was Thursday, and mom was implying that they might need me to drive them around or wait on dad hand and foot or something. I knew it wouldn't take her long to find some other way to keep me home now that she doesn't have the Ethan excuse. And the thing that sucks, is I know what her next tactic will be already. You see, I'm really broke right now, and I owe her a tidy sum of money. My next paycheck is going to be small, and I might not have enough for all my bills, let alone paying her back. And so when I go out, she'll say, "How do you have money for gas?" If I choose to pay her and not save money for gas, I'm then trapped. She will have me stuck here again. My only consolation is that Ethan is going to be gone for the next year, so I know at some point I will have money and free time at the same time. It's a dream I dare to dream. I will keep hope alive!

call me Veruca Salts

I finished season one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night. It was good. The next to last episode, in which a girl becomes invisible because no one notices her, made me think. In that episode, Cordelia makes the point several times that she is the center on her universe, which is no surprise. It was really quite amazing to see how she could change any situation into a tragedy for her, no matter who else was affected. And her criticism of the literature in class was further evidence to her extreme self centeredness. Now, of course, she is an exaggeration, but it made me wonder how much I and those around me do the same thing, to a far lesser degree. Is it truly possible to ever really see the other person's point of view, even if you try? I can think of several times in my life when I was trying to lend a sympathetic shoulder to a friend and I thought I understood where they were coming from and why they were upset, only to find out that they were upset for a completely different reason. It makes you think. I wonder how self centered I appear to be. And that was a rhetorical statement. I think there's an important lesson to be learned here. No matter how hard we try, we can never understand anyone else, so why try? Look out for number 1, baby! :)

email list

Ok, so, I'm Mormon, right? Well, there are subcatagories of Mormon. Like there's a group for kids called Primary, and one for Women called Relief Society, and so on and so forth. Well, when you get to be an adult, if you don't get married right away, you become a "young single adult." Seriously. There's activities and special meeting times and everything. Well, they used to have problems with the really creepy older single guys hitting on the hot 18 year olds, so they made a category called "single adults." Notice the absence of the word "young." It's for people who are Mormon and single between the ages of 30 and dead. They go to church with the regular family type mormons, at least in this area they do, and they have activities at other times. So when I was nearing 30 and saw that all the young single guys were approximately 7-12 years younger than me, I started to look forward to the ability to attend single adult activities so that I could meet people that shared my maturity, single parent status, and interests and so forth. Mostly men. So, I turned 30. I signed up for the emails. I went to my first activity. I found out that just about everyone there was silver haired. If they weren't silver haired, there was a definite reason they were still single. I'm not saying I'm the catch of the day, but I'm not, say, retarded. Literally. And I, well, have teeth rather than blackened stumps were they should be. And I can carry on a conversation and pick up on subtle social situations, like when the person doesn't want to talk to me anymore. Later in the evening, a few eligible prospects showed up, and they also had major flaws. Because the ratio of single women in the church to single men in the church isn't in my favor, they realized they were shooting fish in a barrel. They were pretty much all egotistical ass holes. So, I tried one more activity to be sure, and then retired from the field. I stayed on the email list, however, so I could be up on things. Like, if they sent out an email saying, "we're having a movie night for all 30 something single parents who aren't horrible mutants or deviants," I might think about going. It also helps when people ambush me at church and ask if I'm going to an activity. I can say things like, "No, I can't. It's the night that I'm having my eyeballs removed," instead of having to ask for all the details, listen to the spiel, and then have to think of an excuse on the spot. But the problem is that the emails are not just for the people in this area, it's about ALL the activities for the ENTIRE STATE. And Texas is freakin' huge. I've gotten as many as 14 emails in one day before. It's ridiculous. It's worse than spam, because when I delete spam, I don't get guilt that I'm failing in my Mormonish duties or some crap. It's not even that, it's that the single adult reps are 1) my son's paternal grandmother, and I always feel like I'm disappointing her when I don't go, and 2) this 50-something guy at church who's really nice, but seems to take it so hard that I won't go to his activities. I've come this close to asking them to take me off the list, but I can't seem to go through with it. It sucks, and it's bringing me down. I think deleting my profile from LDSsingles.com will make me feel better. Yay! I'm being proactive!

I want money. It's what I want.

We recently sent out mailers to try to get more business at work, since right now we have so little work that we are only working 3-4 days a week. They decided when they sent out the mailers, to boost the price by about $70, which is almost double, which means we would only need to do half the work we're doing now to make the same amount of money, and if we do the same work we're doing now, we'll make double the money, which is good. My boss said yesterday that he's tired of going through plaster bench people, so he thinks instead of trying to get lots of accounts and hire more people, he wants to just get as much work as the three of us can handle. AND, he said as soon as we secure 2 accounts, he's going to go ahead and give me a $2/hr raise without waiting for my next review in September. Which I REALLY like. Of course, I will have to do some plaster bench work, and maybe some odd jobs sometimes, but, hey, more money is more money. And he said when they get all the current accounts worked up to a higher price, he's gonna put me on salary and then if I only need to work three days, I still get the same pay. I must say, that makes me a little nervous, but you have to take anything Rene says with a grain of salt, so I'll cross that bridge if it ever gets built. But going back to the raise, which I AM counting before it's hatched, if I get it, and work 40 hrs a week, I figured out that I can pay everything I'm paying now, plus some things I'm not, like phone and child support, and I'm even counting gas and insurance and tae kwon do here, I can pay all that, and still have almost $600 a month left over! I still won't be able to move out just yet, but I can start saving a pretty good amount at least! I feel like I just won the very small lottery! YAY! Hooray for money!

my misspent youth may rest in peace

I've been annoyed lately by people who don't update their blogs often enough (this means YOU!), so I decided I should update, even though I have absolutely nothing to say. I missed tae kwon do last night, cause I'm dumb and can't read a calendar. I've been kind stressed out lately, but not nearly as much as some of the other people I know. Also, after consulting my calendar, which I apparently guarantee no results from, I think my bad mood might be from internal sources, if you know what I mean. I've decided to try downloading some music, and it sucks. I hate having to wait and having it screw up and stuff. I'd almost rather just dish out the cash for a CD. My birthday's coming up, and I'm a little excited. I'll no longer be 30, I'll be 31, and firmly entrenched in spinster-hood. I kinda feel like the pressures off. I no longer need to look go, or worry about what people think about me, cause now I'm old enough that they're going to write me off no matter what I do. Sure, it's a bonus if I look great and do and say normal things, but it's no longer mandatory. I can buy gardening gloves and a large straw hat and wear them with abandon. And anyone that doesn't like it can kiss my ass. I'm not going to, but that's not the point, now is it?

Spare the rod. . .

This week was cub scout camp, which meant than do to my over developed sense of obligation and duty, I had to volunteer to be a walker. I waited until very late hoping that all the spots would have been filled already, but when I asked, she said, "Yes! We really need someone for Thursday!" Damn. So I got to walk with Ethan, John Austin, and Austin. Which was confusing to say the least. The big problem was that. . .well. . .you know Ethan, right? Well, he was the best behaved of the three. Yeah. John Austin has a brother and a sister, and every week at church I sit a wonder how their parents are apparently raising them without ANY discipline whatsoever. They are TERRIBLE. They run all over the place and do what ever they want, and if their parents or grandparents say anything, the kids smack them. Seriously, I've seen it. The authority figure in question then decides that is good behavior to ignore. I don't think so! My child would be unable to sit for a while in that situation! I'm not a big fan of the old fashioned spanking, but there's a time and a place, ya know? And Austin, I've never actually seen at church, but he's apparently being raised by his Grandmother. And kids raise by grandma are always brats. This kid is 9 and has a cell phone. In general these guys weren't that bad, except for their tendency to wander off without asking first. So I'd turn around and they would be gone. Finally one time after I had to send Ethan down the hiking trail to find them after 5 minutes, he brought them back and John Austin told me Austin said they could go. I said, "Is Austin an adult? Is he in charge?" "No," was the reply, so I told him from now on he needed to ask an adult for permission. Then I gave Austin quite a ribbing. I told him he wasn't allowed to wander off without permission, I had no idea where they were and they could of gotten hurt and I wouldn't even know where to look for them, and so on and so forth. I made him LOOK at me and say he understood. It was short and to the point. I didn't even yell. But as I was walking away I heard him say in his hurt voice, "She's mean." Oh, Austin my boy, you have NO idea.

no pain, no. . .how's that go, again?

I hurt. I went to Tae Kwon Do today, and it was going pretty well, even though I really didn't feel like eI brought my A-game. And then at the end, he said we had to pair up and hold each other's feet for 20 sit ups apiece! YAY! The only problem is. . .I can't do twenty sit ups. I can barely do 15 crunches. Although I do two sets of 15 crunches, so I guess that's not actually true. but anyway. So I get to around 13 and I'm to the point where I'm getting about 4 inches of the ground before my body stops moving, and I collapse and think that I am done. But by this time, everyone else was done, and they all start cheering for me. Damn. I can't withstand that kind of pressure. So I try to do more. I even have to get my arms into the action instead of keeping them neatly behind my head. By the time I get to twenty, I'm probably getting 1/4 of the way up, but everyone seems to think this is the greatest thing ever. So they cheer like mad, I get up, and Mr Rhyne does a speech about how great it is that we help each other out, and rewards the people who led the cheering with a black belt attitude tape, which is required to advance, and he rewards me with one also, for not giving up. So, I got rewarded for being a lame-ass wussy. YAY! Now I'm still shaking and my muscles hurt. Oh well. It'll hopefully pay off in the long run. Unless I die. But the good news is. . .I'm going to be an auntie!

Random thoughts

Tomorrow, I start tae kwon do. I am very excited to learn skills that might make me into a killing machine. :) Ethan's leaving soon for his two week stint. I have been feeling very sad a depressed lately, but I'm starting to feel better. I managed to clean the living room, which it needed badly, and it made me feel better. I need to finish the bathroom and clean my room, too. Today at work we got a call from a dentist that advertises on the radio. He's trying our lab. I feel like I've had a brush with a celebrity. A week ago, I had a fight with my mom, because she made me a lunch that had bell peppers all in it, when she knows I hate peppers. She got really angry because she said it was really hard to come up with lunches for me everyday that I would like, and I told her she didn't have to. She then got more angry because she feels guilty if she doesn't take care of me. I told her that if she didn't feel like she had to buy my love, it wouldn't bother her. She said she would never make lunch for me again, and she hasn't. I'm glad. I feel sad sometimes when I think of all the friends I've had in my life that were so important to me, who apparently didn't care enough about me to stay in contact. I still think of some of them even though it's been years. Some days I think I should move away from here and start over. I can't though. I wish my air conditioner worked. My aunt's been here for 2 days. It's ok, but I feel like I can't use my own living room when she's here. Tonight I was happy because they showed the one Smallville that I really wanted to see last season, but missed when it originally aired. My boss didn't really chat with me for a long time after he fired Josh, but now he's apparently decided I'm all right again. Today he came and sat in the plaster room and just started talking. Fortunately, I really didn't have to pay attention. He doesn't want friends, he wants yes-men. I agreed to be a walker for cub scout camp, but I really don't want to do it. More so, I think I won't be good at it. I'm very worried about it. Camp's next week, so I really don't think I can do anything to change the situation. Sometimes I wonder if I should even bother taking classes while Ethan's gone. I'm not going to be able to get a degree while he's gone, so I kinda wonder what the point of taking a few classes now is when I won't be able to go back again for years, or maybe decades. Maybe I should accept my lot in life and just resign myself to making teeth. It pays really well, so that's a bonus. I don't like it when my mom and aunt speak so frankly about their childhood. Why do they have to make the rest of us feel uncomfortable to be happy? I want to travel, but I don't think I ever will. I should really learn how to type.